LITERARY 

PILGRIMAGES  // 

NEW  •  ENGLAND 


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BHBBBBHfaiBBBMBBHBBHNIBBBBIHH 


LIBRARY 

OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 


Class 


OF  THE 
UNIVERSITY 

OF 


SCENE   OF    THE    LITERARY   PILGRIMAGES. 


LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES 


IN 


NEW  ENGLAND 


TO    THE    HOMES    OF   FAMOUS    MAKERS    OF 

AMERICAN  LITERATURE    AND    AMONG 

THEIR    HAUNTS   AND    THE    SCENES 

OF   THEIR    WRITINGS 


BY 

EDWIN    M.  BACON 

AUTHOR   OF   "HISTORIC   PILGRIMAGES   IN    NEW   ENGLAND,"    "  BACON*! 

DICTIONARY  OF  BOSTON,"    "WALKS  AND  RIDES  IN  THE 

COUNTRY  ROUND  ABOUT  BOSTON,"    ETC. 


OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY 


SILVER,    BURDETT   &   COMPANY 

NEW  YORK  BOSTON  CHICAGO 


f/3 

B/z? 


COPYBIGHT,  1902,    BY 
SlLVEB,  BUBDETT    AND  COMPANY, 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER   I.  PAaE 

The  Scheme 1 

CHAPTER   II. 
On  Andover  Hill  .  4 


A  serene  old  Academic  Town.  —  Beginnings  of  the  Andover  Academies 
and  the  Theological  Seminary.  —  Some  famous  academy  boys.  — 
Where  "America"  was  written.  —The  Phillips  Family.  —  Notable 
Andover  professors  :  Leonard  Woods,  Eliphalet  Pearson,  Edwards  A. 
Park,  Moses  Stuart,  Austin  Phelps.  —  Elizabeth  Stuart  and  Elizabeth 
Stuart  Phelps  (Ward).  —  Story  of  "The  Gates  Ajar."  —  Harriet 
Beecher  Stowe  and  her  "Old  Stone  Cabin."  —  Her  life  and  work 
there.  —  Her  grave. 

CHAPTER   III. 
At  the  Home  of  Anne  Bradstreet  ........  22 

The  ancient  Bradstreet  homestead.  —  Where  the  first  American  woman- 
poet  wrote.  —  Her  volume  of  verses  and  its  reception.  —  Her  family. 
—  Colonel  Dudley  Bradstreet  and  the  witchcraft  delusion.  —  After- 
history  of  the  old  house.  —  Simeon  Putnam's  boarding-school.  — 
Story  of  Anne  Bradstreet's  life.  —  The  old  Phillips  manse. 

CHAPTER   IV. 
In  Whittier's  Country      ...........          .      35 

Along  the  poet's  beloved  Merrimac.  —  Points  about  Haverhill  celebrated 
in  his  poems.  —  The  old  homestead  where  he  was  born.  —  Scenes 
made  memorable  by  him.  —  Pictures  from  "Snow  Bound":  the 
family  group  about  the  great  fireplace.  —  Life  on  the  farm.  —  Early 
poems  under  the  influence  of  Burns.  —  The  first  poem  in  print.  —  First 
meeting  of  Whittier  and  Garrison  at  the  homestead.  —  The  poet's 
earlier  editorial  work. 


2L0599 


Vi  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER   V.  PAGE 

At  Whittier's  Amesbury  Home 56 

The  "  Garden  Boom."  —  Work  in  verse  and  prose  done  here.  —Later 
editorial  labors. — The  Atlantic  poems. — The  poet's  first  published 
volume.  —  Productions  of  his  riper  years.  —  The  Old  Quaker  Meeting- 
house.—  The  poet's  pew,  where  "LausDeo"  was  thought  out  at  a 
"  Fifth  Day  "  meeting.  —  The  poet's  grave  on  the  hilltop  overlooking 
familiar  scenes  of  his  verse. 

CHAPTER   VI. 
Round  about  Newburyport 65 

"Whittier's  picture  of  "the  old  and  quiet  town."  —  By  the  "Swinging 
chain-bridge."  —  Deer  Island.  —  Harriet  Prescott  Spofford  and  her 
work.  — Scene  of  "The  Tent  on  the  Beach."  — Workplace  of  a  gal- 
axy of  writers  :  Richard  Hildreth,  Theophilus  Parsons,  Cornelius  C. 
Felton,  Lucy  Hooper,  Caleb  Gushing,  George  Lunt,  John  Pierpont, 
James  Parton,  T.  W.  Higginson. — Whittier's  schoolmaster.  —  The 
old  "  Church  of  Federal  Street "  and  Whitefield's  tomb. —  The  Parson- 
age where  the  "  Marvellous  Preacher"  died.  — Birthplace  of  William 
Lloyd  Garrison.  —  His  work  in  Newburyport  and  afterward.  —  The 
Lowell  family.  —  Home  of  Hannah  Flagg  Gould.  —  The  Longfellow 
homestead  in  old  Newbury. 

CHAPTER   VII. 

The  "  Old  Town  by  the  Sea  " 89 

Birthplaces  of  T.  B.  Aldrich,  James  T.  Fields,  Celia  Thaxter,  "  Mrs. 
Partington."  —  Scenes  of  various  classics.  —  On  the  old  Pier.  —  The 
"Earl  of  Halifax "  taverns.  —  Scene  of  the  opening  picture  of  " Lady 
Wentworth." — Aldrich  in  Portsmouth,  and  afterward. — The  old 
Athenaeum.  —  James  T.  Fields's  career.  — Benjamin  P.  Shillaber  and 
the  development  of  "Mrs.  Partington";  His  Carpet  Bag.  —  Some 
Portsmouth  mansions.  —  Daniel  Webster's  home.  —  The  Wentworth 
"Great  House "  at  Little  Harbor.  —  On  Kittery  side. 

CHAPTER   VIII. 
Among  the  Isles  of  Shoals 110 

Their  situation  in  the  Open  Sea.  —  History  and  traditions.  —  Haw- 
thorne's note  on  their  weird  shapes.  —  Celia  Thaxter's  sketch.  — 
Lowell's  "  Pictures  from  Appledore."  — Legends  of  the  Isles.  — The 
Old  White  Island  lighthouse.  — Celia  Thaxter's  girlhood  there.  — Her 
marriage  and  literary  development.  —  Her  later  cottage  home  on 
Appledore.  —  Resort  of  literary  folk.  —  Her  island  grave 


CONTENTS.  Vii 

CHAPTER   IX.  PAGE 

In  the  Forest  City '.'.........     128 

Along  the  way  from  Portsmouth.  —  South  Berwick,  home  of  Sarah  Orne 
Jewett.  —  Story  of  her  work.  —  "The  Falls  of  Saco." —  Portland's 
Longfellow  landmarks.  — The  poet's  birthplace.  — The  mansion  home 
of  his  boyhood.  —  His  life  here  and  at  the  country  homes  of  his  grand- 
fathers. —  His  first  poem  in*  the  local  newspaper.  —  Its  unconscious 
critic.  —  Scenes  of  later  poems.  —  The  Portland  band  of  writers : 
Nathaniel  Deering,  John  Neal,  Seba  Smith,  Isaac  M'Lellan,  Gren- 
ville  Mellen,  Elizabeth  Oakes  Smith,  Anna  S.  W.  Stephens,  Elijah 
Kellogg.  —  Story  of  Nathaniel  P.  Willis. 

CHAPTER   X. 

In  Maine's  Chief  College  Town      . 155 

College  days  of  Longfellow  and  Hawthorne.  —  Where  "Uncle  Tom's 
Cabin"  was  written. — Story  of  the  execution. — Mrs.  Stowe's 
"vision."  —  Longfellow's  first  professorship. — Poems  written  in 
Brunswick.  — Longfellow's  last  visit  to  his  Alma  Mater.  —  "  Morituri 
Salutamus."  —  The  farewell  gathering  of  the  surviving  classmates.  — 
Footprints  of  Hawthorne.  —  The  Abbott  brothers,  Jacob,  John  S.  C. 
and  Gorham  D. — Story  of  the  "  Rollo  Books"  and  their  com- 
panions.—  Birthplace  of  "  Artemus  Ward."  —  His  career  recalled. 

CHAPTER   XI. 
The  Heart  of  Essex 173 

Ipswich  landmarks.  —  Homes  of  Colonial  writers  and  scholars.  —  John 
Winthrop,  jun.  —  Anne  Bradstreet's  earlier  home.  —  Nathaniel  Ward, 
"  The  Simple  Cobler  of  Aggawam. "  —  Hubbard,  the  early  historian.  — 
John  Norton.  — Thomas  Cobbett.  — Nathaniel  Rogers.  — The  progeni- 
tors of  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson.  —  "  Gail  Hamilton's "  home  in 
Hamilton.  —  Scene  of  "The  Witch  of  Wenham."  —  "Peter's  Pulpit." 

CHAPTER   XII. 
Massachusetts  Bay  Side  .............     185 

Old  Beverly  landmarks.  —  Birthplace  of  Lucy  Larcom.  —  Her  early  lit- 
erary efforts  when  a  cotton  mill-hand.  —  Her  later  career.  —  "  Hannah 
Binding  Shoes."  —  Songs  of  the  sea.  — Birthplace  of  Wilson  Flagg.  — 
His  contributions  to  the  literature  of  nature.  — Birthplace  of  George 
E.  Woodberry.  —  His  "  North  Shore  Watch,"  and  "  My  Country."  — 
Beverly  Farms.  — Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  at  "  Beverly -by -th  e-I)epot. " 
—  Manchester-by-the-Sea,  Summer  home  of  Dana,  Bartol,  and  Fields. 


Vlll  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  XIII. 

Hawthorne's  Salem 200 

Beverly  Bridge  and  "The  Toll-Gatherer's  Day." —Birthplaces  of 
Charles  T.  Brooks  and  William  W.  Story.  —  Hawthorne's  house  on 
Mall  Street.  —  His  study  "high  from  all  noise."  —  Story  of  "The 
Scarlet  Letter."  —  The  romancer's  previous  work  and  its  slow  recogni- 
tion. —  The  Union  Street  and  Herbert  Street  houses.  —  The  Peabody 
house  and  "Dr.  Grimshawe's  Secret."  —  The  old  bury  ing-ground 
as  pictured  by  Hawthorne. — Nathaniel  Mather,  "an  aged  man  at 
nineteen  years."  — The  so-called  "Seven  Gables  house."  —  Other 
Hawthorne  homes.  —  Historic  house  of  Abner  C.  Goodell.  — Birthplace 
of  Prescott.  —  Jones  Very.  —  Nahant. 

CHAPTER   XIV. 
A  Day  in  Boston 219 

The  Athenaeum  and  the  Anthology  Club  of  a  century  ago.  —  The 
Monthly  Anthology  and  the  North  American  Review.  —  Homes  of  a 
group  of  historians :  Ticknor,  Motley,  Prescott,  and  Parkman.  — 
Story  of  their  lives  and  work.  —  Glimpses  of  their  literary  work- 
shops. —  Birthplace  of  Wendell  Phillips.  — Thomas  Gold  Appleton.  — 
The  crossed  swords  in  Prescott' s  library. 

CHAPTER   XV. 
Over  Beacon  Hill 247 

Home  of  Richard  H.  Dana,  the  poet.  —  Story  of  his  publication  of  Bry- 
ant's "Thanatopsis." — The  younger  Dana.  —  Arlo  Bates.  —  Henry 
Child  Merwin.  —  Cyrus  A.  Bartol.  —  Charles  Francis  Adams,  senior. 
—  T.  B.  Aldrich's  hill  homes. — William  Ellery  Channing  and  his 
work.  —  Margaret  Deland.  —  William  D.  Howells.  —  The  Alcotts.  — 
Pinckney  Street.  —  Origin  of  " The  Hanging  of  the  Crane."  —  Homes 
of  George  S.  Hillard,  Edwin  P.  Whipple,  Edwin  D.  Mead,  Louise 
Imogen  Guiney.  —  The  poet  Parsons. 

CHAPTER   XVI. 
In  Newer  Boston 276 

Charles-Street  homes  of  Aldrich,  Fields,  and  Holmes.  —  A  side  note 
about  Ponkapog.  —  The  library  in  the  Fields  house.  — Holmes's  work 
in  his  Charles-Street  house.  —  As  a  lecturing  professor.  —  His  career 
reviewed.  —  His  earlier  home  on  Montgomery  Place.  —  Where  the 
"Autocrat"  papers  were  written.  —  Stories  of  notable  poems.— 
Holmes's  last  home  on  Beacon  Street,  water  side.  —  His  closing  years 
and  gentle  death.  —  Home  of  Julia  Ward  Howe.  —  Story  of  the  "Bat- 
tle Hymn  of  the  Republic."  — Other  "  Back  Bay  "  literary  homes.  — 
Edward  Everett  Hale.  — Edwin  Lassetter  Bynner.  — Brook  Farm.  — 
Lindsay  Swift. 


CONTENTS.  ix 

CHAPTER  XVII.  PAQE 

Cambridge  Revisited 295 

Home  of  the  poet-painter,   Washington  Allston.  —  Lowell's  picture  of 
him.  —  Birthplace  of  Margaret  Puller  Ossoli.  —  Story  of  her  career. 
-  The  "  Dial."  •—  Home  of  Louis  Agassiz.  —  His  Cambridge  life  and 
work.  —  Latter  home  of   Jared    Sparks.  —  Where  he  wrote  his  his- 
tories.—Old  "Professors'  Row."  — Home  and  study  of  Francis  J. 

Child.  —  His  classic.  —  Charles  Eliot  Norton  at  "  Shady  Hill." The 

Palfrey  Place.  —  Palfrey's  public  and  literary  life.  —  Birthplace  of 
T.  W.  Higginson.  —  His  literary  and  reform  work.  —  Site  of  Holmes's 
Birthplace.  — The  "  Cambrel-roofed  house"  and  its  memories.  —  In 
the  old  church  yard.  — John  Holmes. 

CHAPTER   XVIII. 

From  "  Craigie  House"  to  "Elmwood" 321 

The  approach  along  Brattle  Street.  —  Scene  of  "The  Village  Black- 
smith." —  Homes  of  John  Fiske.  —  His  notable  work. —  In  the  library 
of  "  Craigie  house."  —Longfellow's  Cambridge  life.  —  His  lirst  rooms 
on  Professors'  Row. — The  "  Five  of  Clubs."  —  First  coming  to  the 
Craigie  house.  —  Madam  Craigie.  — The  upper  and  lower  studies  and 
the  work  done  in  them.  — The  tragedy  of  the  poet's  life.  —  Neighbor- 
ing homes  of  Horace  E.  Scudder  and  T.  W.  Higginson.  —  Lowell  at 
"  Elmwood.".— The  attic  study.  —Story  of  the  "  Biglow  "  papers.  — 
Lowell's  closing  years  at  the  beloved  home.  —  John  T.  Trowbridge  at 
Arlington.  —  Story  of  "Neighbor  Jackwood." 

CHAPTER    XIX. 
Sudbury  and  Concord 362 

The  Wayside  Inn. — Longfellow's  Picture  in  the  "Tales."  —  Story  of 
the  poem.  — The  Wadsworth  Monument.  — Homes  of  "the  Concord 
Group."  —  Thoreau  and  his  haunts.  — The  poet  Chanuing.  —  "Aunt 
Mary  Emerson"  and  Thoreau's  mother. — The  Hut  at  Walden. — 
Frank  B.  Sanborn  and  his  work. — The  Concord  Library.  —  Birth- 
place of  the  brothers  Hoar.  — Emerson  in  Concord.  — The  Alcotts  and 
their  homes.  —  Story  of  a  remarkable  family.  —  Bronson  Alcott's 
unique  career.  — Louisa  Alcott's  achievements.  — The  Concord  School 
of  Philosophy. — Hawthorne  at  "The  Wayside."  —  Scenes  of  his 
later  romances.  —  His  "  Walk  "  on  the  Ridge.  —  His  earlier  life  at  the 
Old  Manse. 

CHAPTER    XX. 

In  the  Connecticut  Valley 415 

Along  the  way  from  Boston  to  Springfield.  — Landmarks  on  connecting 
lines.  —  Birthplace  of  Hannah  Adams.  —  Story  of  the  first  native 


X  CONTENTS. 

American  woman  to  make  books.  —  Kate  Sanborn  and  her  "Aban- 
doned Farm."  —  Birthplace  and  early  life  of  George  Bancroft.  —  Long- 
fellow's poem  on  "The  Arsenal  at  Springfield."  —  Landmarks  of 
Dr.  Josiah  G.  Holland.  —  His  "Timothy  Titcomb  "  Letters  and  his 
popular  poems.  —  Samuel  Bowles,  the  early  independent  editor.  — 
Edward  Bellamy's  home  at  Chicopee  Falls.  —  His  "Looking  Back- 
ward" and  later  works. — Jonathan  Edwards,  the  Puritan  metaphy- 
sician.—  Timothy  Dwight  and  the  Dwight  family.  —  Smith  College 
for  Women. — The  Round  Hill  School  of  Bancroft  and  Cogswell. — 
Bancroft's  Northampton  and  later  life.  —  George  W.  Cable  at  "  Tarry- 
awhile." 

CHAPTER  XXI. 

Among  the  Berkshire  Hills   . ^446 

Pittsfield.  —  Birthplace  of  William  Allen,  maker  of  the  first  American 
biographical  dictionary. — The  former  Gold  mansion,  scene  of  "The 
Old  Clock  on  the  Stairs."  —  Holmes's  ancestral  country  seat. — 
Scenes  of  '  "  Elsie  Venner."  —  "  The  Plowman."  —  The  original 
"One  Hoss  Shay."  —  "Broadhall." —The  two  Majors  Melville. 
—  Herman  Melville  and  Hawthorne.  —  Melville's  sea  stories.  — 
Lenox.  —  Catherine  M.  Sedgwick's  stories.  —  Mrs.  Charles  Sedg- 
wick's  school  and  some  of  her  pupils.  —  Maria  Cummings,  author  of 
"The  Lamplighter."  —  Frances  Anne  Kemble. — Hawthorne  in 
"The  little  red  cottage."  —  Stockbridge.  —  "  Edwards  Hall." — 
Jonathan  Edwards's  life  here.  —  The  Sedgwick  mansion  and  the 
Sedgwick  family.  —  The  famous  brothers  Field.  —  Birthplace  of 
Mark  Hopkins.  —  Great  Barrington.  —  Scenes  of  Bryant's  favorite 
poems.  —  The  poet's  earlier  life  in  Cummington.  —  A  glance  at 
Sheffield. 

CHAPTER   XXII. 
Hartford  and  New  Haven 472 

Writers  identified  with  the  "  Charter  Oak  City."— From  the  "  Hartford 
Wits"  to  the  modern  set.  — The  grouped  homes  of  Harriet  Beecher 
Stowe,  Charles  Dudley  Warner,  and  "Mark  Twain." — Clemens's 
unique  apprenticeship  to  literature.  —  Warner's  earlier  home  of  "  My 
Summer  in  a  Garden." — Mrs.  Sigourney. — Catherine  Beecher's 
celebrated  Academy. — Emma  Willard. — The  trio  of  Hartford  lit- 
erary editors  :  Brainard,  Prentice,  and  Whittier.  —  Productions  of 
the  "Hartford  Wits."— The  "City  of  Elms." —  Literary  men  as 
Yale  students.  —  The  Trumbull  Gallery.  —  Distinguished  graves  in 
the  Old  Burying  Ground.  —  The  poets  Hillhouse  and  Percival.  — 
Theodore  Winthrop.  —  Donald  G.  Mitchell  at  "Edge wood." 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATION'S. 


PAGE 

MaP Frontispiece 

Old  Judge  Phillips's  Mansion 

House,  Andover,  Mass 6 

Portrait  of  Edwards  A.  Park  ...  9 
Old  Andover  Home  of  Elizabeth 

Stuart  Phelps  (Ward)  ....  11 
Portrait  of  Elizabeth  Stuart  Phelps  15 
Portrait  of  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe  18 
Old  Bradstreet  House,  North  An- 
dover, Mass 24 

Facsimile  of  Anne  Bradstreet's 

Handwriting 28 

Ancient  Burying  Ground  at  North 

Andover,  Mass 33 

Whittier's  Birthplace,  Haverhill, 

Mass 37 

Kitchen,  Whittier  Homestead  .  .  42 
Portrait  of  John  G.  Whittier  at 

Thirty 52 

A  Bit  of  the  Parlor  in  Whittier's 

Amesbury  Home 57 

Whittier  Homestead,  Amesbury, 


Portrait  of  Whittier  in  Late  Life  .  60 
Friends'  Meeting-house,  Amesbury, 

Mass 61 

Amesbury  from  Powow  Hill,  the 

View  in  "  Miriam  " 63 

Chain-Bridge  by  Deer  Island,  Merri- 

mac  River 66 

Home  of  Harriet  Prescott  Spofford, 

Deer  Island 67 

Portrait  of  Harriet  Prescott  Spof- 
ford   68 

Home  of  James  Par  ton,  Newbury- 

port,  Mass 74 

The  "Old  Church  of  Federal 

Street,"  Newburyport,  Mass.  .  .  76 
Parsonage  where  Whitefield  Died, 

Newburyport,  Mass 77 


PAGE 

Birthplace  of  William  Lloyd  Garri- 
son, Newburyport,  Mass.  ...  78 

Portrait  of  William  Lloyd  Garri- 
son ..  go 

Facsimile  of  the  Title  of  "  The  Libe- 
rator"   f  ,  82 

Lowell  House,  Newburyport,  Mass.      84 

Home  of  Hannah  Flagg  Gould, 
Newburyport,  Mass 85 

Old  Longfellow  Homestead,  New- 
bury,  Mass 87 

Portrait  of  Thomas  Bailey  Aldrich 
in  Boyhood 90 

Birthplace  of  Thomas  Bailey 
Aldrich,  Portsmouth,  N.H.  .  .  93 

Portrait  of  Benjamin  P.  Shillaber    101 

Daniel  Webster  House,  Ports- 
mouth, N.H 103 

The  Wentworth  Great  House, 
Little  Harbor,  Portsmouth,  N.H.  107 

Celia  Thaxter  in  her  Garden,  Isles 
of  Shoals Ill 

White  Island  Light,  Isles  of  Shoals    115 

Celia  Thaxter's  Grave  on  Apple- 
dore  Island 118 

Portrait  of  Sarah  Orne  Jewett  .     .    129 

Home  of  Sarah  Orne  Jewett,  South 
Berwick,  Maine 130 

Corner  in  Miss  Jewett's  Study    .    .    131 

Birthplace  of  Longfellow,  Portland, 
Maine 133 

Longfellow  Mansion  House,  Port- 
land, Maine 135 

Portrait  of  Henry  Wadsworth 
Longfellow 137 

Portrait  of  Elizabeth  Oakes  Smith    143 

Portrait  of  Nathaniel  Parker  Willis    146 

Bowdoin  College  in  1825,  where 
Longfellow  and  Hawthorne  were 
Graduated  .  .  156 


Xll 


LIST  Off  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


PAGE 

House  in  which  "  Uncle  Tom's 
Cabin"  was  Written,  in  Bruns- 
wick, Maine 159 

Jacob  Abbott  in  his  Parlor  at 
"  Fewacres,"  Farmington,  Maine  167 

"  Fewacres,"  Jacob  Abbott's 
Country  Home 168 

Portrait  of  "Artemus  Ward" 
(Charles  F.  Browne) 171 

Portrait  of  John  Winthrop,  Son  of 
Governor  John  Winthrop  of 
Massachusetts 174 

The  Ancient  Norton  House,  Ips- 
wich, Mass 177 

Portrait  of  "Gail  Hamilton" 
(Mary  Abigail  Dodge)  .  .  .  .  .  182 

Birthplace  of  Lucy  Larcom, 
Beverly,  Mass 186 

Portrait  of  Lucy  Larcom    ....    187 

Facsimile  of  "Hannah  Binding 
Shoes" 188 

Home  of  Mistress  Hale,  Beverly, 
Mass 190 

Home  of  Wilson  Flagg,  Beverly, 
Mass 191 

Portrait  of  Wilson  Flagg    ....    192 

Portrait  of  Professor  George  E. 
Woodberry 194 

Facsimile  of  Woodberry's  Manu- 
script and  Autograph 197 

Birthplace  of  William  Wetmore 
Story,  Salem,  Mass 201 

Hawthorne's  Mall  Street  House, 
Salem,  Mass 203 

The  Peabody  or  "  Dr.  Grimshawe  " 
House,  Salem,  Mass 206 

Hawthorne's  Chestnut  Street 
House,  Salem,  Mass 212 

Hawthorne's  Dearborn  Street 
House,  Salem,  Mass 213 

Portrait  of  Abner  C.  Goodell  ...    214 

Home  of  Jones  Very,  Salem,  Mass.    216 

The  Boston  Athenaeum 220 

Portrait  of  George  Ticknor    ...    224 

Portrait  of  John  Loth  rop  Motley  .    229 

Home  of  William  H.  Prescott, 
Boston,  Mass.  .  . 234 

Portrait  of  William  H.  Prescott     .    238 

Home  of  Francis  Parkman,  Boston, 
Mass 240 

Portrait  of  Francis  Parkman      .    .    244 


PAGE 

Home  of  Thomas  Bailey  Aldrich, 

Boston,  Mass 255 

Portrait  of  Thomas  Bailey  Aldrich  256 
Facsimile  of  Thomas  Bailey 

Aldrich's  Manuscript 257 

Home  of  William  Ellery  Channing, 

Boston,  Mass 258 

Portrait  of  Margaret  Deland  ...  262 
Margaret  Deland's  Library,  Boston, 

Mass 263 

Portrait  of  Edwin  D.  Mead  ...  266 
Edwin  D.  Mead's  Literary  Parlor, 

Boston,  Mass 267 

Portrait  of  Edwin  Percy  Whipple  .    272 
Facsimile  of  E.  P.  Whipple's  Man- 
uscript       273 

Portrait  of  James  T.  Fields  ...  277 
Library  of  James  T.  Fields,  Boston, 

Mass 278 

Last  Home  of  Dr.  Oliver   Wendell 

Holmes,  Boston,  Mass 285 

Portrait  of  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  286 
Facsimile  of  Holmes's  Manuscript  .  287 
Home  of  Edward  Everett  Hale, 

Boston,  Mass 291 

Edward  Everett  Hale  in  his  Study    292 
Portrait  of  Edwin  Lassetter  Bynner    293 
Portrait  of  Margaret  Fuller  (Mar- 
chioness Ossoli) 299 

Portrait  of   Professor    Francis  J. 

Child 307 

Study  in  Professor  Child's  House, 

Cambridge,  Mass 308 

Professor  Child  in  his  Rose  Garden  309 
"  Shady  Hill,"  Home  of  Charles 

Eliot  Norton,  Cambridge,  Mass.  .    310 
Home  of  John  G.  Palfrey,   Cam- 
bridge, Mass 312 

Bust  of    Dr.  Palfrey  in  Memorial 

Hall,  Harvard  University    ...    313 
Holmes's   Birthplace,   Cambridge, 

Mass 315 

Birthplace  of  Thomas  Wentworth 

Higginson,  Cambridge,  Mass.  .     .    317 
Library  of  John  Fiske,  Cambridge, 

Mass 322 

Portrait  of  John  Fiske 324 

Longfellow's     Study    in   the    Old 

Craigie  House,  Cambridge,  Mass.    331 
Horace  E.  Scudder  in  his  Library, 
Cambridge,  Mass 337 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


Xlii 


PAGE 

Home  of  Thomas  Wentworth  Hig- 

ginson,  Cambridge,  Mass.     .    .     .  339 
Colonel  Higginson  in  his  Study  .    .  340 
Portrait  of  James  Russell  Lowell  .  341 
Lowell's    Study,   Elmwood,   Cam- 
bridge, Mass 343 

Facsimile  of  Lowell's  Manuscript  .  355 
Home  of   John   Townsend   Trow- 

bridge,  Arlington,  Mass 357 

Portrait  of  J.  T.  Trowbridge  ...  360 
The  Wayside  Inn,  South  Sudbury, 

Mass 363 

Old  Dining-Room,  Wayside  Inn  .     .  364 

Old  Tap-room,  Wayside  Inn    ...  365 
Wadsworth    Monument,    Sudbury, 

Mass 370 

House  of  Frank  B.  Sanborn,  Con- 
cord, Mass 375 

Portrait  of  F.  B.  Sanborn    ....  377 
Portrait  of  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson, 

1845 380 

Portrait  of  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson, 

1858 .    .  386 

The  "  Alcotts'  Orchard  House,"  Con- 
cord, Mass 387 

Portrait  of  Louisa  M.  Alcott  ...  390 

Facsimile  of  Miss  Alcott's  Writing  393 
Portrait  of  Nathaniel  Hawthorne 

in  Middle  Life 402 

Hawthorne's  Walk  on  the  Ridge, 

Concord,  Mass 404 

Hawthorne's  West  Newton,  M.ass. 

Home 406 

Entry  to  the  Old  Manse,  Concord, 

Mass 408 

Hawthorne  and  his  Publishers  .    .  410 

Portrait  of  Ezra  Ripley 412 

Birthplace  of  Hannah  Adams,  Med- 

field,  Mass 416 

Portrait  of  Hannah  Adams     .     .     .  418 

The  Abandoned  Farm  Beautified    .  421 

Portrait  of  Dr.  Josiah  G.  Holland  .  426 


PAGE 

Portrait   of    Samuel   Bowles,   the 

independent  Editor 428 

Home  of  Edward  Bellamy,  Chicopee 

Falls,  Mass.      .    • 430 

Portrait  of  Edward  Bellamy  ...  431 
The  Old  Jonathan  Edwards  House, 

Northampton,  Mass 432 

Memorial  Tablet  to  Jonathan  Ed- 
wards, Northampton,  Mass.    .    .    434 
The  Edwards  Elm,  Northampton, 

Mass 437 

Facsimile  of   Jonathan  Edwards's 

Will 438 

Portrait  of  Sophia  Smith,  Founder 

of  Smith  College 440 

A  Glimpse  of  Smith  College  ...  442 
Portrait  of  George  W.  Cable  .  .  444 
Bryant  Homestead,  Cuinmington, 

Mass 447 

Portrait  of  Herman  Melville  .  .  .  452 
Hawthorne's  Desk,  Used  in  the 

"Red  Cottage,"  Lenox,  Mass.  .  458 
The  Sedgwick  Mansion  House, 

Stockbridge,  Mass 460 

Portrait  of  Catherine  M.  Sedgwick    462 
Bryant's  Home  at  Great  Barring- 
ton,  Mass 464 

Portrait  of  Bryant,  at  the  Age  of  40    469 
Portrait  of  Bryant  in  Later  Life    .    470 
The    "  Mark  Twain  House,"  Hart- 
ford, Conn 474 

Portrait  of  "  Mark  Twain  "...  475 
Mrs.  Stowe's  Earlier  Hartford, 

Conn.,  Home 477 

Mrs.  Stowe's  Later  Hartford  Home  479 
Later  Home  of  Charles  Dudley 

Warner,  Hartford,  Conn.  ...  480 
Portrait  of  Charles  Dudley  Warner  483 
Portrait  of  Theodore  Winthrop  .  .  493 
"  Edge  wood,"  Home  of  Donald  G. 

Mitchell,  New  Haven,  Conn.  .  .  498 
Portrait  of  Donald  G.  Mitchell  .  .  500 


The  portrait  of  "  Gail  Hamilton  "  at  the  age  of  thirty-three,  on  page  182,  is  from 
"  Gail  Hamilton's  Life  in  Letters,"  by  permission  of  Messrs.  Lee  &  Shepard. 

The  picture  of  Longfellow's  Study,  011  page  331,  is  from  "Final  Memorials  of 
Henry  Wadsworth  Longfellow,"  by  permission  of  Messrs.  Houghton,  Mimin  &  Co. 

The  pictures  of  Mrs.  Stowe's  earlier  and  later  Hartford  homes,  on  pages  447  and 
449  respectively,  are  from  the  "  Life  of  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe,"  by  permission  of 
Messrs.  Houghton,  Mimin  &  Co. 


or  THE 
UNIVERSITY 

OF 


LITERARY    PILGRIMAGES. 


I. 

THE    SCHEME. 

ON  TRAIN,  June  1,  1902. 

Arrive  Boston  late  afternoon.  Dine  with  me  Parker's  and  talk  it 
over.  PERCY  DENISON. 

THIS  telegram  was  brought  over  to  my  old  West  End  study 
by  a  natty  lad  in  blue  and  brass  buttons,  at  the  very  moment 
that  I  was  engaged  in  "  coaching  "  for  the  visit  it  announced. 

I  had  been  prepared  for  it  by  a  letter  previously  received 
from  my  young  Western  friend,  in  which  he  had  expressed  his 
intention  of  coining  East  again  for  his  summer  vacation,  and 
his  desire  to  devote  a  fortnight  to  further  Pilgrimages,  under 
my  guidance,  similar  to  those  that  we  had  made  together  two 
years  or  so  before,  this  time  to  literary  rather  than  historic 
landmarks  in  New  England.  Ever  since  the  receipt  of  this 
letter,  I  had  been  hard  at  work  brushing  up  my  own  scattered 
knowledge  of  such  landmarks,  consulting  authorities,  and  col- 
lecting, digesting,  and  condensing  a  mass  of  material,  that  I 
might,  to  some  degree  at  least,  meet  his  requirements.  These 
were,  as  he  put  them,  the  story  of  the  beginnings  and  develop- 
ment of  American  literature  by  New  England  writers,  disclosed 
through  visits  to  their  landmarks,  —  the  places  where  they 
lived  and  wrote,  and  the  places  about  which  they  wrote,— 
together  with  something  about  their  literary  lives,  their  meth- 
ods of  work,  and  the  influence  of  the  leading  ones,  upon  the 
literature  of  their  day  and  time. 

1 


2  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

-  « In  brief,"  wrote  the  charming  fellow,  as  if  his  request 
were  the  simplest  thing  in  the  world  to  fill,  « I  want,  through 
these  Pilgrimages,  to  get  the  history  of  American  literature  so 
far  as  New  Englanders  have  made  it,  from  the  beginning,  as 
I  got  the  history  of  the  beginnings  and  development  of  our 
country  through  our  Historic  Pilgrimages." 

It  was  a  stupendous  task  which  he  thus  jauntily  outlined 
for  me,  and  accordingly  I  awaited  his  coming  with  appre- 
hension mingled  with  pleasant  anticipations  of  his  delightful 
companionship. 

I  met  him  at  the  appointed  time,  and  was  captivated  by  his 
appearance.  He  had  grown  since  I  last  saw  him  from  a  hand- 
some lad  into  a  manly  youth,  long  limbed,  straight  as  an  arrow, 
with  an  eager  look  in  his  bright  eyes,  a  confident  bearing,  a 
buoyant  air  —  a  fine  type  of  the  high-bred  American  youth  of 
to-day,  who  looks  the  world  squarely  in  the  face  and  frankly 
shows  his  liking  for  it,  and  his  firm-fixed  belief  in  his  ability 
successfully  to  cope  with  it.  He  had  got  beyond  the  high 
school,  he  told  me,  and  was  now  contemplating,  with  an  easy 
assurance,  the  "preliminaries"  he  was  next  to  encounter  for 
his  entrance  to  college. 

We  dined  well,  Percy  proving  an  admirable  host ;  and,  as 
we  dined,  developed  our  scheme. 

It  was  determined  at  the  outset  that  it  must  spread  over  a 
wider  field  than  that  of  the  Historic  Pilgrimages,  since  the 
landmarks  which  should  be  included  were  in  widely  separated 
parts  of  New  England,  and  in  groups  short  journeys  apart.  It 
should  also  embrace,  so  far  as  possible,  the  homes  and  haunts 
of  all  New  England  writers  who  have  made  a  distinct  mark  in 
American  literature  since  we  have  had  a  literature,  if  the  story 
were  to  be  obtained  with  an  approach  to  fullness.  With  these 
general  points  settled,  we  speedily  made  up  a  schedule  of  routes 
covering  parts  of  Eastern  Massachusetts,  New  Hampshire, 
Maine,  Western  Massachusetts,  and  Connecticut. 

Since  we  should  travel  in  all  sorts  of  conveyances,  by  land 


THE  SCHEME. 


and  by  water,  should  do  a  good  deal  of  walking,  and  should 
spend  no  more  than  a  single  night  in  any  one  place,  we  decided 
to  reduce  our  luggage  to  the  smallest  compass,  and  to  burden 
our  hands  with  the  fewest  things.  Percy,  however,  felt  that 
he  must  take  along  his  kodak,  sketch-book,  and  field-glass  as 
before  ;  while  I  concluded  to  carry  my  note-books  in  a  handle- 
less  cloth  bag  which  I  could  tuck  under  my  arm. 

With  these  preliminaries  at  length  arranged,  we  parted,  to 
meet  early  the  next  morning,  and  make  our  start. 


II. 

ON    ANDOVER    HILL. 

A  serene  old  Academic  Town.  —  Beginnings  of  the  Andover  Academies 
and  the  Theological  Seminary.  —  Some  famous  academy  boys.  — 
Where  "America"  was  written. —The  Phillips  Family. —Notable 
Andover  professors  :  Leonard  Woods,  Eliphalet  Pearson,  Edwards  A. 
Park,  Moses  Stuart,  Austin  Phelps.  — Elizabeth  Stuart  and  Elizabeth 
Stuart  Phelps  (Ward). —Story  of  "The  Gates  Ajar." —Harriet 
Beecher  Stowe  and  her  "Old  Stone  Cabin."  —  Her  life  and  work 
there.  —  Her  grave. 

THE  North  Andover  home  of  the  pioneer  woman-poet  of 
America,  led  our  list  of  ancient  literary  landmarks,  but  our  first 
pilgrimage  was  to  more  modern  landmarks  in  Andover  proper. 
This  was  because  the  latter  is  reached  on  the  railroad  line  out 
from  Boston  (the  Boston  and  Maine  system)  before  North 
Andover,  and  because  the  charms  of  the  old  Massachusetts 
academic  town,  with  the  literary  flavor  bestowed  upon  it  by 
the  scholars  and  writers  who  have  dwelt  within  its  shades, 
were  of  first  interest  to  Percy,  since  he  had  heard  of  them  in 
his  Western  'home.  He  had  yet  to  make  acquaintance  with 
gentle  Anne  Bradstreet's  unique  career  of  two  and  a  half 
centuries  ago. 

Alighting  at  the  Andover  station,  after  a  pleasant  railroad 
journey  of  about  twenty  miles,  we  made  our  way  direct  to  An- 
dover Hill,  —  a  short  mile  walk,  —  and  here  were  at  once  in 
a  scholastic  atmosphere. 

On  either  side  of  the  broad,  elm-lined,  green-fringed  thor- 
oughfare, each  set  within  ample  grounds,  we  saw  the  institu- 
tions which  have  given  Andover  its  wide  fame,  —  Phillips 
(Andover)  Academy,  dating  from  the  eighteenth  century;  Abbot 

4 


ON  ANDOVER  HILL.  5 

Academy,  opened  in  1829,  the  first  academy  incorporated  in 
Massachusetts  for  the  education  of  girls  solely,  as  the  earlier 
Franklin  Academy,  instituted  in  1800,  was  the  first  to  admit 
girls  with  boys ;  and  Andover  Theological  Seminary,  estab- 
lished in  1808,  —  the  first  divinity  school  in  the  country,  and 
the  first  seminary  of  its  kind  in  the  world.  And  in  close  neigh- 
borhood with  these  institutions  stood  fine,  old-fashioned,  roomy, 
often  stately,  dwellings  distinguished  as  the  homes  through 
long  years  of  grave  and  learned  professors,  and  of  men  and 
women  of  letters.  As  we  strolled  over  the  historic  hill,  Percy 
admired  the  older  more  than  the  newer  buildings  of  the  sev- 
eral educational  groups,  the  sedate  earlier  architecture  having, 
as  he  sagely  pronounced,  a  dignity  and  impressiveness  which 
the  more  ornate  style  of  some,  at  least,  of  the  later-day  work 
failed  to  attain. 

We  tarried  awhile  at  each  institution,  -making  a  tour  of  the 
buildings  under  courteous  volunteer  guides,  whose  friendliness 
Percy  won  by  his  keen,  fresh  interest  in  everything  pertaining 
to  these  establishments,  and  his  intelligent,  if  rapid,  question- 
ings as  to  their  history. 

Phillips  (Andover)  Academy,  the  oldest  of  them  all,  was 
founded  in  1778,  and  had  its  origin  in  a  proposition  which 
Samuel  Phillips  3d,  made  to  his  father,  Samuel  Phillips  2d, 
and  to  his  uncle,  John  Phillips,  a  founder  of  Phillips  (Exeter) 
Academy.  They  were  both  men  of  wealth,  and  he,  their  sole 
heir,  a  young  man  "rising  thirty,"  as  Percy's  informant 
quaintly  expressed  it,  was  just  entering  public  life.  They 
promptly  took  action  upon  his  proposition  to  found  a  literary 
institution  here  for  the  education  of  youth.  The  Seminary  for 
the  training  of  ministers,  founded  thirty  years  later,  Percy 
learned  was  originally  engrafted  on  the  Academy.  Earliest 
among  the  Academy  boys  were  two  nephews  of  Washington, 
and  sons  of  Richard  Henry  Lee  and  Josiah  Quincy ;  with 
those  of  later  years  were  Nathaniel  P.  Willis,  Isaac  McLellan, 
and  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes. 


6  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

Percy  also  heard  much  about  the  Phillips  family,  one 
of  importance  and  distinction  in  its  day,  whose  generous  and 
repeated  benefactions  made  these  institutions  possible.  «  They 
started  here  in  Andover,"  said  the  same  informant,  "  with  the 
Rev.  Samuel  Phillips,  —  a  great  grandson  of  the  Puritan 
George  Phillips,  first  minister  of  Watertown,  in  1630,  —  who 
came  to  the  town  in  1711  as  the  first  minister  of  the  South 
Parish,  which  included  the  earliest  settlement  about  this  hill- 
top. Samuel  Phillips  2d  and  John  Phillips,  the  founders  of 


OLD   JUDGE    PHILLIPS    MANSION    HOUSE. 

the  Academy,  were  his  sons,  and  were  both  born  here.  Wil- 
liam Phillips,  another  son,  also  born  here,  became  a  successful 
merchant  in  Boston ;  and  his  son  was  the  rich  William  Phillips 
who  was  lieutenant  governor  of  Massachusetts  from  1812  to 
1823,  the  second  of  the  family  to  occupy  that  station.  Samuel 
Phillips  2d  became  the  Honorable  Samuel,  through  his  service 
as  a  representative  and  senator  in  the  Revolutionary  period. 
He  married  Elizabeth  Barnard,  a  cousin  to  the  minister  of  the 
North  Parish,  which  included  the  first  settlement  of  Andover, 
where  Anne  Bradstreet  earlier  lived.  They  had  seven  children. 


ON  ANDOVER  HILL.  7 

"  Their  son  Samuel  Phillips  3d,  the  proposer  of  the  Academy, 
also  became  prominent  in  public  life.  He  was  the  first  Lieut.- 
Governor  Phillips,  serving  in  1801- '02.  Samuel  Phillips  3d 
married  Phebe  Foxcroft  of  Cambridge.  She  continued  his 
benefactions  to  the  Academy  after  his  death,  and  became  one 
of  the  founders  of  the  Seminary,  with  her  son,  Colonel  John 
Phillips  (born  in  1776).  They  erected  its  first  two  buildings. 
Colonel  John  Phillips  married  Lydia  Gorham,  a  daughter  of 
Judge  Nathaniel  Gorham  of  Charlestown,  a  member  of  the  Con- 
tinental Congress,  and  president  of  the  convention  that  framed 
the  Federal  Constitution.  Colonel  John  died  suddenly  in  1820, 
at  the  early  age  of  forty -four,  leaving  his  widow,  at  thirty-six, 
with  thirteen  children.  One  of  their  daughters,  as  the  wife  of 
William  Gray  Brooks  of  Boston,  became  the  mother  of  the 
beloved  Protestant  Episcopal  clergyman,  the  Bishop  of  Massa- 
chusetts, Phillips  Brooks,  and  his  three  minister-brothers." 

The  story  of  the  founding  of  the  Seminary  "  to  provide  for 
the  church  a  learned,  orthodox,  and  pious  ministry,"  was  also 
given  Percy  in  interesting  outline.  He  was  told  of  the  dif- 
ficulties encountered  in  its  establishment,  resulting  in  part 
from  two  distinct  movements  at  the  outset,  to  attain  the 
same  end,  —  one  here,  the  other  in  Newburyport  and  Salem. 
It  was  partly  due,  also,  to  differences  in  the  shadings  of 
theological  points  between  those  who  became  concerned  in 
the  undertaking.  In  the  Andover  movement,  developed  by 
Eliphalet  Pearson,  the  first  preceptor  of  the  Academy,  were 
the  united  forces  of  Samuel  Abbot,  a  wealthy  Andover  mer- 
chant ;  Madam  Phebe  Phillips,  the  widow  of  the  founder  of 
the  Academy ;  her  son,  Colonel  John  Phillips,  and  others. 
The  Newburyport  and  Salem  movement  was  devised  by  two 
zealous  Orthodox  ministers,  —  the  Kev.  Dr.  Samuel  Spring 
of  Newburyport,  and  the  Kev.  Dr.  Samuel  Hopkins  of  Salem, 
who  were  strenuous  for  the  establishment  of  the  institution  in 
Newburyport,  and  with  them  were  enlisted  some  wealthy  men 
of  those  towns. 


8  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

"While,  however,  the  two  parties  differed  as  to  details, 
and  as  to  location,"  the  story-teller  continued,  "  both  were 
agreed  on  the  essential  point,  —  the  immediate  need  of  a 
firmly  rooted  and  thoroughly  Orthodox  training  school  for 
Orthodox  ministers.  For  it  was  a  time  of  theological  up- 
heavals, when  Unitarianism  had  swept  through  many  of  the 
older  Orthodox  churches,  and  pervaded  leading  educational 
institutions.  Professor  Pearson,  the  Andover  leader,  had  been 
professor  of  Hebrew  and  Oriental  Languages  at  Harvard  for 
twenty  years,  and  was  at  one  time  acting  president  of  the 
college.  He  had  lately  resigned  his  position,  upon  the  election 
of  the  Unitarian  Professor,  Samuel  Webber,  to  the  presidency 
of  Harvard,  which  followed  close  upon  the  appointment  of 
another  Unitarian,  the  Rev.  Henry  Ware,  to  the  Hollis  pro- 
fessorship of  divinity.  At  length,  after  much  investigating 
and  some  compromising,  the  two  movements  were  brought 
together  harmoniously,  and  the  institution  was  here  planted. 
As  finally  arranged,  the  Andover  projectors  were  designated 
'  Founders,7  and  the  Newburyport  and  Salem  men  (William 
Bartlet  and  Moses  Brown  of  Newburyport,  and  John  Norris 
of  Salem),  who  founded  professorships,  '  Associate  Founders.' 

"  The  Seminary  opened  with  thirty-six  students.  Since 
that  day  thousands  have  been  graduated  and  sent  out  over  the 
land,  and  to  foreign  parts,  as  missionaries,  many  attaining  em- 
inence in  their  fields.  One  of  its  graduates  was  Dr.  Samuel 
F.  Smith  (born  in  Boston,  1808,  —  died,  1895),  the  author  of 
1  America.'  He  wrote  the  hymn  at  Andover,  in  February,  1832, 
the  last  year  of  his  student  course,  composing  it  in  a  short 
half-hour  on  a  scrap  of  paper  which  he  caught  up  from  his 
table.  It  was  written  to  fit  some  music  which  he  found-  in  a 
German  music  book,  the  same  tune  that  the  English  adopted 
for  <  God  Save  the  King.'  Dr.  Lowell  Mason  then  music 
master  of  Boston  had  given  him  the  book  from  which  to 
translate  something  for  church  choir  or  Sunday  school  singing. 
i  America ?  was  first  publicly  sung  at  a  children's  celebration 


ON  ANDOVER  HILL. 


9 


of  the  Fourth  of  July,  1832,  in  the  Park  Street  Church, 
in  Boston.  Dr.  Smith  also  wrote  while  here  his  widely  sung 
missionary  hymn,  '  The  Morning  Light  is  Breaking.'  He 
was  in  Harvard  in  the  brilliant  class  of  1829,  of  which 
Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  was  a  member ;  and  Holmes  thus 
alludes  to  him  in  the  famous  lines  on  this  class : 

*  And  there's  a  nice  youngster  of  excellent  pith ; 
Fate  tried  to  crush  him  by  naming  him  Smith. 
But  he  shouted  a  song  for  the  brave  and  the  free  — 
Just  read  on  his  medal,  "  My  country,  of  thee."  ' 

"  The  Kev.  Dr.  Leonard  Woods  (born  1774,  — died  1854),- 
father  of  the  Leonard  Woods,  also  doctor  of  divinity,  who  was 
the  fourth  president 
of  Bowdoin  College  in 
Maine,  —  was  the  first 
head  of  the  Seminary 
as  Abbot  professor  of 
Christian  Theology. 
Dr.  Woods  held  his 
chair  for  thirty-eight 
years,  and  in  his  old 
age  became  professor 
emeritus.  He  was 
succeeded  by  Professor 
Edwards  A.  Park  (born 
in  Providence,  K.I., 
1809,  —  died  in  An- 
dover,  1900),  himself  a 
graduate  of  the  Semi- 
nary, and  the  first 
professor  of  Sacred 
Khetoric,  who  as  its 
uncompromising  director  for  half  a  century  gave  great  prom- 
inence to  the  institution.  Professor  Pearson  (born  in  Newbury, 


EDWARDS    A.    PARK. 


10  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

Mass.,  1752,  —  died  in  Greenland,  N.H.,  1826),  who  was  the 
first  professor  of  Natural  Theology,  or  Sacred  Literature,  re- 
tired in  1810,  and  was  succeeded  by  Professor  Moses  Stuart 
(born  in  "\Vilton,  Conn.,  1780,  —  died  in  Andover,  1852). 
Professor  Stuart,  whose  services  covered  thirty-eight  years, 
attained  especial  distinction  for  Biblical  learning,  and  as  a 
philologist.  He  was  the  author  of  that  early  Hebrew  Grammar, 
published  in  1821,  the  second  edition  of  which,  appearing 
ten  years  later,  became  the  standard  text-book  for  the  study 
of  Hebrew.  Professor  Park  was  succeeded  in  the  chair  of 
Sacred  Ehetoric,  when  he  took  the  leadership  of  the  insti- 
tution, by  Professor  Austin  Phelps  (born  in  West  Brookfield, 
1820,  —  died  at  Bar  Harbor,  Me.,  1890),  whose  notable  service 
extended  over  thirty -one  years." 

At  this  point  I  remarked  that  Professor  Stuart  was  "the 
grandfather,  and  Professor  Phelps  the  father,  of  Elizabeth 
Stuart  Phelps  Ward  (born  in  Boston,  1844),  some  of  whose  later 
stories  I  fancied  Percy  had  read,  to  which  he  nodded  assent. 
Of  her  most  talked-of  story,  "  The  Gates  Ajar,"  he  confessed 
that  he  had  never  heard,  although  the  book  might  be  in  the 
library  at  home.  Since  we  were  in  the  near  neighborhood  of 
the  place  where  she  did  the  work  which  made  her  known,  I  sug- 
gested that  we  take  this  next  in  order.  Percy  acquiescing,  we 
crossed  the  campus  and  the  thoroughfare,  and  came  upon  the 
dwelling,  a  comfortable  white  mansion  of  old-time  aspect,  pleas- 
antly set  a  little  back  from  the  street,  in  a  sightly  spot,  from 
the  rear  of  which  spread  fine,  distant  views. 

"This,"  I  detailed,  "was  Elizabeth  Stuart  Phelps's  home 
through  her  girlhood,  from  the  age  of  two  years  to  mature  life. 
From  her  cultivated  parents  and  grandparents,  she  inherited 
the  genuine  literary  spirit ;  and  from  her  mother  came  her 
special  talent  for  story-writing.  It  was  as  natural  that  she 
should  take  to  the  pen,  as  that  her  brothers  should  follow  the 
profession  which  their  forebears  had  honored.  She  was  Pro- 
fessor Phelps's  eldest  child,  and  the  only  daughter  in  a  family 


ON  ANDOVER  HILL. 


11 


3     > 


12  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

of  five  children.  Her  mother  was  Elizabeth  Stuart,  the  old- 
est of  Professor  Moses  Stuart's  three  daughters;  all  of  whom 
were  talented.  She  was  agreeably  known  to  readers  of  New 
England  tales  and  juveniles  in  the  forties  and  fifties,  by  her 
pen  name  of  '  H.  Trusta/  an  anagram  of  her  maiden  name. 
She  died  in  1852,  <at  the  first  blossom  of  her  very  positive 
and  widely-promising  success  as  a  writer  of  simple  home 
stories  which  took  such  a  hold  upon  the  popular  heart.  Her 
"  Sunnyside "  had  reached  already  a  circulation  of  an  hun- 
dred thousand  copies,  and  she  was  following  it  fast  —  too 
fast —  by  other  books,  for  which  the  critics  and  the  publishers 
clamored.7  Such  is  the  loving  testimony  of  her  daughter,  and 
it  is  abundantly  justified  by  the  distinction  which  was  accorded 
her  in  the  literary  field  of  her  day.  Besides  '  Sunnyside/ 
'  The  Angel  Over  the  Eight  Shoulder,'  and  a  <  Peep  At  Num- 
ber Five/  l  lived,'  as  her  daughter  has  said,  '  before  women  had 
careers  and  public  sympathy  in  them/  Professor  Phelps  next 
married  her  sister,  Mary  Stuart,  who  lived  but  a  short  married 
life,  her  death  occurring  in  1856.  Subsequently  he  took  a  third 
wife,  Miss  Mary  Johnson,  daughter  of  a  Boston  merchant. 
The  professor  himself,  though  for  years  in  delicate  health, 
lived  to  a  good  old  age.  His  published  works  embrace  '  The 
Still  Hour'  (published  in  1858),  and  his  Andover  lectures. 
He  was  a  profound  scholar  and  a  refined  gentleman.  After  her 
mother's  death,  Elizabeth  was  nearest  to  him  ;  and  she  has 
thus  engagingly  borne  witness  to  his  learning  and  his  kindly 
nature.  '  He  was  my  climate.  .  .  .  As  soon  as  I  began  to 
think  I  began  to  reverence  thought  and  study  and  the  hard 
work  of  a  man  devoted  tc  the  high  ends  of  a  scholar's  life. 
.  .  .  His  appreciation  of  the  uses  and  graces  of  language 
very  early  descended  like  a  mantle  upon  me.  I  learned 
to  read  and  to  love  reading,  not  because  I  was  made  to, 
but  because  I  could  not  help  it.  It  was  the  atmosphere 
I  breathed.  I>ay  after  day  the  watchful  girl  observed  the  life 
^f  a  student?  —  its  .scholarly  tastes,  its  high  ideals,  its  scorn 


OAT  ANDOVER  HILL.  13 

of  worldliness  and  paltry  aims  or  petty  indulgences,  and  for- 
ever its  magnificent  habits  of  work.'  She  recalls  his  constant 
kindliness,  his  quiet  direction  of  the  studies  of  his  children,  the 
development  of  character  in  them,  his  easy  conversations  with 
them  on  great  or  profound  subjects,  such  as  'time  and  eter- 
nity, theology  and  science,  literature  and  art,  invention  and 
discovery.' 

"  Miss  Phelps  began  to  write  when  a  girl,  and  she  was  but 
thirteen  when  she  first  saw  her  work  in  print.  It  was  a  pious 
little  story,  she  calls  it,  published  in  the  Youth's  Companion. 
Her  first  money  was  made  a  little  later  from  a  contribution  to 
(  some  extremely  orthodox  young  people's  periodical,'  for  which 
she  received  two  and  a  half  dollars.  Her  first  serious  work, 
from  which  she  dates  the  real  beginning  of  her  literary  career, 
was  a  short  war  story,  <  A  Sacrifice  Consumed,'  written  when 
she  was  about  sixteen,  and  published  in  Harper's  Monthly. 
For  this  she  received  twenty-five  dollars  on  acceptance.  She 
had  kept  the  venture  a  profound  secret.  Even  her  father 
knew  nothing  of  it;  and  when  she  placed  before  his  eyes  the 
editor's  letter  with  the  check,  '  the  pleasure  on  his  expressive 
face  was  only  equalled  by  its  frank  and  unqualified  astonish- 
ment.' After  this  she  wrote  pretty  steadily.  Her  stories  were 
accepted  by  various  magazines,  and  she  did  much  *  hack  work,' 
including  a  lot  of  Sunday  school  books,  some  of  them  in  sets  of 
four  volumes,  written  to  order.  Not  a  little  of  this  work  was 
accomplished  before  she  left  school,  which  was  close  upon  her 
nineteenth  birthday.  Meanwhile  hers  had  been  a  wholesome 
girlhood.  She  was  an  '  out-of-door  girl,'  entering  joyously  into 
the  games  of  the  seasons,  —  in  winter  skating,  and  coasting 
<  standing  up  on  the  biggest  sled  in  town,  down  the  longest 
hills,  and  on  the  fastest  local  record.' 

"Then  came  'The  Gates  Ajar,'  remarkable  for  the  time  and 
its  source.  This  was  begun  when  she  was  approaching  twenty- 
one,  and  was  published  in  1868,  more  than  three  years  after- 
ward. It  brought  her  quick  and  widespread  fame,  together 


14  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

with  a  storm  of  criticism  from  portions  of  the  religious  press 
because  of  its  heterodoxy.  Its  almost  startling  frankness  and 
freedom  in  attempting  to  describe  the  celestial  life,  its 
picturing  in  much  detail  a  material  heaven  and  the  inhabitants 
thereof,  led  many  to  assume  that  its  young  author  was  moved  by 
a  deep  motive,  a  hope,  perhaps,  of  establishing  a  new  religion 
or  a  new  creed.  But  she  herself,  in  after  years,  dispelled  all 
such  theories.  If  she  had  any  object  at  all  in  its  conception, 
she  declared  it  was  that  she  wished  to  say  something  that 
would  comfort  some  few  of  the  women  whose  misery  crowded 
the  land  at  the  time  she  began  the  story,  —  the  closing  period 
of  the  Civil  War.  Quoting  her  own  words  (and  I  drew  my 
note-book  from  my  cloth  bag)  :  '  The  country  was  dark  with 
sorrowing  women.  The  regiments  came  home,  but  the 
mourners  went  about  the  streets  ...  It  came  to  me,  as  I 
pondered  these  things  in  my  own  heart,  that  even  the  best  and 
kindest  forms  of  our  prevailing  beliefs  had  nothing  to  say  to 
an  afflicted  woman  that  could  help  her  much.  ...  At  this 
time  ...  I  had  no  interest  at  all  in  any  special  movement  for 
the  peculiar  needs  of  women  as  a  class.  ...  I  was  taught  the 
old  ideas  of  womanhood  in  the  old  way,  and  had  not  to  any 
important  extent  begun  to  resent  them.' 

"  According  to  her  custom,  she  said  nothing  to  relative  or 
friend  about  the  work  as  it  was  progressing ;  and  unknown  to 
her  father,  she  dedicated  it  to  him,  — '  To  my  father,  whose 
life,  like  a  perfume  from  beyond  the  Gates,  penetrates  every 
life  which  nears  it,  the  readers  of  this  little  book  will  owe 
whatever  pleasant  things  they  may  find  within  its  pages.' 

"  Of  the  good  man's  reception  of  this  dedication  she  relates 
these  incidents,  which  illustrate  his  gentle  delicacy  and  sweetness 
of  disposition :  In  it  '  there  was  a  slip  in  good  English  ;  or,  at 
least,  in  such  English  as  the  professor  wrote  and  spoke.  I  had 
used  the  word* "  near  "  as  a  verb,  instead  of  its  proper  synonym, 
"  approaches."  He  read  the  dedication  quietly,  thanked  me 
tenderly,  and  said  "nothing.  It  was  left  for  me  to  find  out 


ON  ANDOVER  HILL. 


15 


my  blunder  for  myself,  as  I  did  in  due  time.  [The  word  was 
changed  in  subsequent  editions  of  the  book.]  He  had  not  the 
heart  to  tell  me  of  it  then ;  nor  did  he  insinuate  his  conscious- 
ness that  the  dedication  might  seem  to  involve  him  —  as  it  did 
in  certain  citadels  of  stupidity  —  in  the  views  of  the  book/ 

"The  story  lay  some  time  in  her  Boston  publishers'  hands; 
indeed,  for  two  years,  hanging   meanwhile  'upon   a  delicate 

scale/    Then  it  ventured  __„__ 

forth  between  covers ; 
and  one  morning,  not 
many  weeks  after,  Miss 
Phelps  received  a  cor- 
dial note  from  James  T. 
Fields,  of  the  publish- 
ing house,  reporting  that 
the  book  was  '  moving 
grandly  ;  it  has  already 
reached  a  sale  of  four 
thousand  copies/  and  en- 
closing a  cheque  for  six 
hundred  dollars  —  the 
largest  sum  upon  which 
she  had  '  ever  set.  her 
startled  eyes.'  Subse- 
quently the  American 
circulation,  approaching 
one  hundred  thousand, 
was  outrun  by  that  of 
Great  Britain,  and  trans- 
lations appeared  in  French,  German,  and  Dutch.  Nearly 
twenty  years  later  <  The  Gates  Between,'  of  similar  nature,  but 
more  mature,  appeared.  Her  popular  story,  e  Hedged  In,'  pub- 
lished in  1870,  was  also  written  here  in  Andover ;  and  other 
work  was  done  which  sustained  her  fame.  Andover  and  this 
old  house  remained  her  home  until  her  marriage  with  Herbert 


16  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

D.  Ward,  in  1888,  when  she  removed  first  to  Gloucester,  by  the 
sea,  and  afterward  to  Newton,  near  Boston." 

This  long  monologue  began  as 'we  stood  contemplating  the 
"white  mansion,"  and  continued  while  we  afterward  strolled 
up  and  down  the  neighboring  sidewalk  under  the  elms  to  avoid 
the  suspicious  observation  of  passers.  It  was  drawn  out  by 
Percy's  ardent  desire  for  every  detail  and  his  nattering  atten- 
tion to  it  all,  which  showed  him  to  be  a  model  listener.  At  its 
finish  he  proposed  that  we  make  bold  to  call  at  the  house,  and, 
frankly  stating  our  interest  in  its  literary  associations,  ask  to 
be  permitted  to  look  into  the  study  where  Miss  Phelps  —  and 
perhaps  her  mother  before  her  —  had  written.  But  this  was 
not  worth  while,  for  there  was  no  one  special  room  where 
either  of  them  wrote.  "  Till  after  the  publication  of  <  The 
Gates  Ajar,' "  I  recalled,  "  Mrs.  Ward  has  said  that  she  had  no 
place  by  herself,  except  her  little  room  at  the  back  of  the 
house,  with  its  one  window  over-looking  the  garden,  unheated 
in  winter.  Accordingly  she  was  obliged  to  write  where  she 
could.  Sometimes  she  worked  in  the  large  dining-room  while 
the  boys  were  at  play  there.  Sometimes,  to  escape  the  noise 
of  the  house,  she  stole  up  to  the  attic  with  pen  and  paper,  or 
into  some  unfrequented  closet ;  or,  in  summer  time,  to  a  hay- 
mow in  the  barn.  At  last,  after  <The  Gates  Ajar '  appeared 
and  many  orders  came  to  her  as  a  result  of  its  popularity,  she 
secured  a  study  in-  a  sunny  room  in  the  farmhouse  of  the 
Seminary  estate,  then  next  to  the  <  white  mansion';  and  in 
later  years  she  made  her  workshop  in  <a  built-over  summer 
house  under  a  big  elm  in  the  garden,'  which  her  mother  had 
once  used  for  a  study." 

Since  it  was  nearing  the  luncheon  hour  we  recrossed  the 
campus,  and  walked  through  the  avenue  of  elms  along  the  front 
of  the  Seminary  buildings,  which  many  a  theologue  has  paced 
in  deep  meditation,  wrestling  with  solemn  problems.  Our  steps 
were  directed  to  the  Mansion  House  on  the  west  side  of  the 
boundary  road. 


ON  ANDOVER  HILL.  17 

While  awaiting  the  mid-day  meal  we  looked  about  the  older 
part  of  the  hostelry.  "  For  this,"  I  observed, "  is  historic  as  the 
home  of  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe  (born  1811  —  died  1896)  during 
her  husband's  service  in  the  Seminary  as  professor  of  Sacred 
Literature,  from  1852  to  1863.  When  the  Stqwes  took  the  house 
it  was  known  as  the  Old  Stone  Workshop,  having  been  in  earlier 
days  used  by  Seminary  and  Academy  students  in  fashioning 
packing  boxes  and  wheelbarrows;  and  for  a  few  years  just 
preceding  their  occupancy  it  had  been  utilized  as  the  Seminary 
gymnasium.  They  transformed  it  into  a  delightful  home,  and 
it  became  famous  as  a  literary  center,  where  were  graciously 
entertained  many  persons  of  distinction  abroad,  as  well  as  in 
our  own  country.  The  Stowes  gave  it  the  name  of  '  The 
Cabin.' " 

At  this  Percy  exclaimed  with  animation,  "  So  it  was  here 
that  '  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin '  was  written." 

"No.  But  the  'Key'  to  <  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,'  giving  the 
original  facts,  documents,  anecdotes,  and  other  data  011  which  the 
celebrated  book  was  based,  was  written  here.  So  was  '  Dred,' 
the  complement  to  '  Uncle  Tom's '  in  which  Mrs.  Stowe  utilized 
material  collected  for  the  '  Key.'  This  story  was  suggested  by 
a  negro  insurrection  in  Virginia,  in  1831,  led  by  one  '  Nat ' 
Turner,  one  of  the  principals  being  named  '  Dred.'  Here,  too, 
were  written  '  The  Minister's  Wooing,'  and,  '  The  Pearl  of  Orr's 
Island.'  And  that  story  of  Italy,  '  Agnes  of  Sorrento,'  begun 
in  Florence,  was  completed  here.  '  Uncle  Tom's '  was  com- 
posed, for  the  most  part,  in  Brunswick,  Maine,  where  the 
Stowes  were  living  previous  to  their  coming  to  Andover,  while 
Professor  Stowe  occupied  a  chair  in  Bowdoin  College.  We 
shall  find  some  of  its  '  landmarks '  upon  our  pilgrimage  to  that 
pleasant  college  town  later  on." 

We  had  to  imagine  what  the  old  stone  house  was  in  the 
Stowes'  day,  for  the  changes  in  the  interior  have  been  radical. 
Mrs.  Ward's  slight  description  of  it  as  it  appeared  in  her  girl- 
hood helped  us  to  picture  it  to  the  mind's  eye  with  its  "  long  par- 


18 


LI  TERA  R  Y  PIL  GRIM  A  GES. 


lor  running  the  full  width  of  the  house,  whose  deep  embrasured 
window-seats  seemed  to  me  only  less  wonderful  than  the  soft 
and  brightly -colored,  rather  worldly-looking  pillows  with  which 
these  attractive  nooks  were  generously  filled.  There  were  flow- 
ers always,  and  a  bower  of  ivy  made  summer  of  the  eternal 
Andover  winters  in  the  stone  house  ;  and  there  were  merry 
boys  and  girls,  —  Mrs.  Stowe  was  the  most  unselfish  and  loving 

of  mothers,  —  and 
there  were  always 
dogs,  big  and 
little,  curly  and 
straight.  ...  It 
was  an  open,  hos- 
pitable house,  hu- 
man and  hearty 
and  happy." 

With  the  sur- 
roundings here 
Mrs.  Stowe  was 
charmed.  During 
her  first  summer 
(in  1852),  she 
wrote  her  hus- 
band, who  was 
still  in  Bruns- 
wick, and  part  of 
the  season  in  Cin- 
cinnati :  "What  a 
beautiful  place  it 
is !  ...  Yesterday  I  was  out  all  the  forenoon  sketching  elms. 
There  is  no  end  to  the  beauty  of  these  trees.  I  shall  fill  my 
book  with  them  before  I  get  through." 

"The  Stowes,"  I  went  on  to  relate,  "came  to  Andover 
flushed  with  the  phenomenal  success,  financial  and  literary,  of 
'  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin/  which  had  first  appeared  in  book  form 


HARRIET    BEECHER    STOWE. 
(From  portrait  at   Phillips  (Andover)   Academy.) 


O.V  AN  DOVER  HILL.  19 

the  preceding  spring,  after  its  run  through  the  National  Em, 
in  Washington,  as  a  serial.  Within  four  months  from  the  day 
of  its  issue,  it  had  paid  the  author  ten  thousand  dollars  in 
royalties,  lifting  her  suddenly  from  comparative  poverty  and 
hardships  to  something  quite  resembling  affluence,  while  her 
fame  was  spreading  over  the  world.  Within  its  first  year  one 
hundred  and  twenty  editions  of  the  book,  or  over  three  hundred 
thousand  copies,  had  been  issued  and  sold  in  this  country  ;  while 
in  Great  Britain  and  the  colonies  over  one  and  a  half  million 
copies  were  circulated  in  the  same  period.  Numerous  cheap 
London  editions  were  published;  and,  though  there  was  no 
international  copyright  then,  some  honorable  publishers  offered 
the  author  interests  in  their  sales.  Translations  were  also  issued 
in  nineteen  different  languages — Armenian,  Bohemian,  Danish, 
Dutch,  Finnish,  Flemish,  French,  German,  Hungarian,  Illyrian, 
Italian,  Polish,  Portuguese,  Romaic  or  Modern  Greek,  Russian, 
Servian,  Spanish,  Wallachian,  and  Welsh.  Nothing  like  the 
success  of  this  book  in  so  wide  a  field  had  been  chronicled  in 
the  history  of  modern  literature. 

"  From  this  house  Mrs.  Stowe  started  for  her  first  visit  to 
Europe,  in  1853,  that  triumphal  journey  through  Scotland  and 
England,  during  which  she,  her  husband,  and  her  brother,  the 
Rev.  Charles  Beecher,  were  guests  of  friends  of  the  cause  of 
emancipation  in  the  United  Kingdom.  A  second  trip  abroad 
was  made  after  the  completion  of  '  Dred '  in  the  summer  of 
1856,  this  time  begun  with  quite  a  family  party,  including 
her  husband,  as  before,  her  two  eldest  daughters,  her  oldest 
son,  Henry,  and  her  sister,  Mrs.  Mary  Beecher  Perkins.  Dur- 
ing this  visit  courtesies  more  marked  even  than  on  the  first 
one  were  extended  to  her.  In  England  she  was  received  by 
the  Queen,  and  formed  acquaintance  with  «  divers  of  her  lords 
and  ladies.'  She  was  the  guest  of  the  Duke  of  Argyll  at  Inver- 
ary  Castle  in  the  Highlands ;  spent  some  days  at  Dunrobin 
Castle,  where  '  everything  was  like  a  fairy  story ; '  received 
distinguished  attentions  in  Edinburgh  and  other  parts;  back 


20  LITERARY  .PILGRIMAGES. 

in  England  was  entertained  at  numerous  lovely  country  seats, 
and  visited  the  family  of  Charles  Kingsley  and  other  literary 
lights.  Meanwhile  '  Dred '  was  proving  a  quick  financial  suc- 
cess there,  one  hundred  thousand  copies  having  sold  in  four 
weeks ;  while,  as  Mrs.  Stowe  wrote  home,  the  critical  journals, 
and  the  newspapers,  pretty  generally,  were  attacking  it,  both 
from  a  literary  and  a  religious  point  of  view. 

"  In  the  late  autumn  Mrs.  Stowe  with  her  party  crossed 
the  Channel,  and  settled  for  the  winter  in  Paris,  for  the  express 
purpose  of  studying  French.  Professor  Stowe  had  some  time 
previously  returned  to  his  professional  duties,  followed  later 
by  their  son  Henry,  who  went  back  to  enter  Dartmouth  College. 
Afterward  the  party  made  leisurely  journeys  into  Italy,  tarry- 
ing for  some  time  at  Rome,  Naples,  and  Venice,  and  finally 
returned  home  to  Andover,  after  an  absence  of  a  year. 

"Almost  immediately  after  her  return,  with  a  heart  full, 
and  her  mind  crowded  with  pleasant  memories,  Mrs.  Stowe  re- 
ceived a  crushing  blow  in  the  death  of  the  son  Henry,  drowned 
while  bathing  in  the  Connecticut  Biver  at  Hanover,  N.H.,  at 
the  close  of  his  Freshman  year  in  Dartmouth.  This  sorrowful 
event  inspired  her  touching  poem,  ( Only  a  Year/  The  young 
man's  grave  was  made  here  in  Andover  in  the  Seminary  bury- 
ing ground,  in  the  lot  which  became  the  Stowes'  family  lot  and 
the  burial  place  forty  years  after  of  his  gifted  mother. 

"In  the  summer  of  1859  Mrs.  Stowe  left  this  Andover 
home  for  her  third  and  last  European  tour,  accompanied  by  her 
husband  and  all  her  children,  except  the  youngest,  Charles. 
The  early  winter  following  was  spent  in  Italy ;  and  while  in 
Home  she  formed  a  warm  friendship  with  the  Brownings.  It 
was  Curing  this  visit  that  she  wrote  out,  in  Florence,  the  rough 
sketch  of  '  Agnes  of  Sorrento/  finished  and  published  four 
years  later,  in  1863,  the  last  year  of  the  life  in  this  <  Stone 
Cabin/  From  here  the  family  moved  to  Hartford,  Conn., 
where  Mrs.  Stowe's  remaining  years  were  spent/' 

"  Dinner  "  was  called  before  I  had  finished  this  long  narra- 


ON  ANDOVER  RILL.  21 

tion.  Afterward  we  crossed  over  to  the  Seminary  burying- 
ground  near  by  and  Percy  copied  the  brief  inscription  on  the 
modest  monument  over  Mrs.  Stowe's  grave,  close  to  the  marble 
cross  marking  that  of  her  beloved  son  Henry. 

Completing  with  this  our  round  of  old  Andover  literary 
landmarks,  we  returned  to  the  main  thoroughfare,  and  taking 
an  open  trolley  car  which  soon  came  down  the  way,  —  decor- 
ously, as  befitted  these  serene,  scholastic  parts,  —  we  began  our 
little  journey  to  North  Andover,  the  home  of  Anne  Bradstreet. 


III. 

AT    THE    HOME    OF   ANNE    BRADSTREET. 

The  ancient  Bradstreet  homestead.  —  Where  the  first  American  woman- 
poet  wrote.  — Her  volume  of  verses  and  its  reception.  —  Her  family. 
—  Colonel  Dudley  Bradstreet  and  the  witchcraft  delusion.  —  After- 
history  of  the  old  house.  —  Simeon  Putnam's  boarding-school.  — 
Story  of  Anne  Bradstreet's  life.  — The  old  Phillips  manse. 

IT  was  an  agreeable  short  hour's  ride  through  Andover 
village  and  into  more  rural  parts,  finishing  a  short  distance 
beyond  the  North  Andover  railway  station.  At  this  point 
the  old  Boston  and  Haverhill  road  makes  a  sharp  turn,  dis- 
closing the  ancient  Bradstreet  place  on  the  left,  and  just 
above,  on  the  opposite  side,  the  more  stately  Phillips  manse,  in 
later  years  the  summer  home  of  Phillips  Brooks.  As  we  left 
the  car  by  the  Bradstreet  house,  which  presented  a  side  to  the 
road,  Percy's  eye  took  in  the  pleasing  prospect  round  about  it, 
a  spread  of  fair  fields  over  a  rolling  country  and  distant  wood- 
lands. 

From  a  swing-gate  in  the  old-fashioned  fence  we  followed 
the  short  path  to  the  front  door,  which  opened  to  our  ring,  and 
gave  us  hospitable  entrance  ;  for  we  were  happily  accompanied 
by  a  friend  of  its  occupants,  themselves  lineal  descendants  of 
one  of  the  old  Andover  families,  in  whose  possession  the 
estate  has  been  for  a  long  period. 

We  were  received  into  the  comfortable  "keeping-room," 
which  opened  at  the  right  from  the  narrow  entry,  with  its 
small  windows  on  the  front  and  side,  its  deep  fireplace  in  the 
massive,  strongly-buttressed  chimney  running  up  through  the 
middle  of  the  house,  and  its  old  style  furnishings  harmonizing 


AT    THE   HOME    OF  ANNE   BRADSTREET.  23 

with  the  ancient  frame.  And  as  we  sat  in  this  rare  room,  dat- 
ing back  to  early  colonial  times,  Percy  was  told  the  story  of 
the  house,  our  kind  hosts  embellishing,  from  their  store  of 
family  traditions,  the  record  drawn  largely  from  the  "  Histori- 
cal Sketches  of  Andover,"  by  Sarah  Loring  Bailey,  whose  birth- 
place this  homestead  was. 

Thus  ran  the  tale.  The  house  was  built  presumably  about 
1667,  in  place  of  the  original  house  which  Simon,  Anne  Brad- 
street's  husband,  erected  on  the  same  site  twenty  and  more 
years  before,  when  his  family  moved  here  from  Ipswich.  That 
house  was  burned  to  the  ground  on  a  July  night  of  1666,  with 
most  of  its  contents,  —  furniture  brought  out  from  England, 
family  portraits  and  heirlooms,  and  a  library  of  eight  hundred 
volumes,  a  rare  thing  in  the  early  Puritan  homes.  The  lament- 
able event  moved  Mistress  Anne  Bradstreet  to  some  "  Verses 
Upon  the  Burning  of  Our  House,  July  10th,  1666,"  of  which 
the  following  are  samples  : 

"  In  silent  night  when  rest  I  took 
For  sorrow  neer  I  did  not  look, 
I  waken' d  was  with  thundring  nois 
And  Piteous  shreiks  of  dreadfull  voice. 
That  fearfull  sound  of  fire  and  fire 
Let  no  man  know  is  my  Desire. 

I  starting  up,  the  light  did  spye, 
/  And  to  my  God  my  heart  did  cry 

To  strengthen  me  in  my  Distresse 
And  not  to  leave  me  succourlesse. 
Then  coming  out  beheld  a  space, 
The  flaine  consume  my  dwelling  place. 

Then  streight  I  'gin  my  heart  to  chide, 
And  did  thy  wealth  on  earth  abide  ? 
Did'st  fix  thy  hope  on  mouldring  dust, 
The  arm  of  flesh  didst  make  thy  trust  ? 
Raise  up  thy  thoughts  above  the  skye         —  ' 
That  dunghill  mists  away  may  flie. 


24 


LITEEAET  PIL GEUfA GE ,<?. 

Thou  hast  an  house  on  high  erect, 
Framed  by  that  mighty  Architect, 
With  glory  richly  furnished, 
Stands  permanent  tho  :  this  bee  fled. 
It's  purchased,  and  paid  for  too 
By  him  who  hath  enough  to  doe. 


Anne  Bradstreet  (born  in  England,  161213)  lived  in  this  house 
only  about  five  years,  for  she  died  in  the  autumn  of  1672,  at 


OLD    BRADSTREET  HOUSE. 

the  age  of  sixty.  A  year  afterward  Simon  Bradstreet  removed 
to  Salem,  probably  relinquishing  the  homestead  to  their  third 
son,  Dudley,  who  had  just  married.  He  was  the  only  son  then 
remaining  in  Andover. 

Dudley  Bradstreet  became  a  leading  man  of  affairs.     He 
served  successively  as  a  selectman  of  the  town ;  a  representa- 


AT   THE  HOME   OF  ANNE  BRADtiTREET.  25 

tive  in  the  General  Court;  a  colonel  of  militia;  one  of  the 
Council  of  Safety  between  1689  and  1692,  when  his  father  was 
governor;  and  a  magistrate.  During  the  witchcraft  delusion 
of  1692,  after  granting  a  number  of  warrants  for  the  apprehen- 
sion of  proclaimed  "  witches/'  he  checked  the  frenzy.  He 
drew  up  and  headed  a  plea  for  a  number  of  Andover  women, 
who  had  been  terrorized  into  confession  of  witchcraft,  asserting 
his  belief  in  their  innocence.  Then  he  himself  was  accused  of 
having  practiced  witchcraft,  and  had  to  fly  from  this  home  and 
hide  till  the  delusion  was  dispelled.  His  wife  was  also 
"  named"  as  a  suspected  "  witch." 

In  March  of  1698,  when  the  Indians  fell  upon  Andover, 
this  house  was  attacked  by  a  band  of  forty,  and  its  inmates 
were  "  dragged  out  into  the  wintry  air  to  See  their  neighbors' 
houses  in  flames,  and  the  snow  stained  with  the  blood  of  their 
townspeople."  A  remembered  act  of  kindness  by  the  magis- 
trate, some  years  before,  to  one  Indian  of  the  band,  happily 
saved  the  family  from  slaughter;  and  after  being  carried  off  about 
fifty  rods  to  a  secluded  spot,  they  were  released  unharmed. 

Colonel  Dudley  died  in  1702 ;  and  a  few  years  afterward 
the  old  house  was  purchased  for  the  Rev.  Thomas  Barnard, 
minister  of  the  First  Parish,  the  parsonage  having  been  burned 
down  in  1707.  Thereafter  it  was  the  home  of  First  Parish 
ministers  till  into  the  nineteenth  century.  Its  last  ministerial 
occupant  .in  direct  line  was  the  Rev.  Dr.  William  Synimes,  the 
fifth  minister,  a  great  grandson  of  Zachariah  Symmes,  first 
minister  of  Charlestown,  who  came  out  with  Winthrop's  com- 
pany in  1630.  After  Dr.  Symmes's  death  it  became  the  sum- 
mer home  of  John  Norris  of  Salem,  one  of  the  Associate 
Founders  of  the  Andover  Seminary. 

A  little  later  a  boarding-school  was  kept  here  by  Simeon 
Putnam,  a  famous  schoolmaster  of  his  day ;  and  the  neighbors 
used  to  tell  of  the  grass  "  worn  smooth  by  the  roadside,  where 
he  kept  the  idlers  and  dunces  sitting  to  con  their  tasks,  a 
spectacle  to  passers  by."  The  room  in  which  we  were  sitting 


26  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

was  the  schoolroom ;  and  one  of  its  windows  long  bore  this 
rhyme  cut  upon  it  by  one  of  the  boys :  — 

"  Stranger,  these  tainted  walls  depart, 
Within  are  fetters  to  a  freeman's  heart!" 

Cut  on  the  glass,  also,  were  formerly  the  autographs  of  two 
boys  who  afterward  took  creditable  rank,  the  one  in  business, 
the  other  in  professional  life,  —  Amos  A.  Lawrence,  who  be- 
came an  eminent  Boston  merchant,  and  Chandler  Bobbins, 
tenth  minister  of  the  Second  Church  of  Boston,  succeeding 
Ralph  Waldo  Emerson  in  the  pulpit  of  Increase,  Cotton,  and 
Samuel  Mather  of  Puritan  days. 

The  old  place  has  had  its  day  as  a  "  haunted  "  house,  and 
it  is  related  that  its  "  ghost "  once  made  "  a  frightful  clatter- 
ing "  in  the  chamber  of  a  young  negro  servant. 

Now  the  treasured  volume  from  which  the  verses  on  the 
burning  of  the  first  house  had  been  quoted  was  again  produced ; 
and  Percy  was  given  Mistress  Anne  Bradstreet's  story,  with 
further  samples  of  her  work. 

She  was  the  eldest  daughter,  and  second  child,  of  Thomas 
Dudley,  the  first  deputy  governor,  and  afterward  governor  of 
the  Massachusetts  Colony.  When  a  girl  of  sixteen  she  was 
married  to  Simon  Bradstreet,  nine  years  her  elder;  and  she 
was  but  eighteen  when  she  came  out  from  England  to  the  new 
country  with  her  father,  mother,  and  husband,  to  begin  the  hard 
life  of  a  colonist.  Her  young  girlhood  had  been  spent  amid 
gentle  surroundings,  and  with  exceptional  advantages,  at  the 
Earl  of  Lincoln's  castle  of  Sempspringham,  her  father  having 
become  steward  of  the  earl's  estate  when  she  was  about  six 
years  old.  She  early  displayed  literary  tastes,  which  she  culti- 
vated, as  is  evident  from  her  poems,  through  poetical  and 
historical  studies  pursued  with  unusual  diligence  for  one  of  her 
age  and  her  sex  in  those  days  of  unlearned  womanhood. 

Bradstreet  was  also  in  the  Earl  of  Lincoln's  family  and 
under  Dudley's  care,  having  been  taken  into  the  household 


AT   THE  HOME   OF  ANNE  BRADSTREET.  27 

when  he  was  sixteen  or  seventeen  years  old,  two  or  three  years 
after  the  death  of  his  iather,  who  was  a  Nonconformist  min- 
ister of  Lincolnshire.  The  girl  and  the  youth  were  thus 
"  brought  up "  together.  For  a  while  Bradstreet  served  as 
steward  during  Dudley's  absence  in  Boston,  Lincolnshire, 
where  the  latter  became  acquainted  with  the  minister  of  St. 
Botolph's  church,  John  Cotton,  afterward  the  honored  minister 
of  Boston  in  New  England.  When  Bradstreet  married  Anne 
Dudley,  however,  he  was  steward  of  the  Countess  of  Warwick. 

The  Dudleys  and  Bradstreets  all  came  out  to  America 
presumably  on  the  Arbella,  the  "  flag-ship  "  of  Governor  Win- 
throp's  "  fleet,"  with  the  other  principal  folk,  for  Dudley  had 
been  elected  deputy  governor,  and  Bradstreet  was  of  the 
"  Court  of  Assistants,"  before  the  sailing  from  England.  The 
two  were  of  the  leaders  who  began  the  settlement  at  Newe 
Towne,  which  became  Cambridge,  and  each  built  a  substantial 
house  there.  In  1635  they  were  among  the  settlers  at  Ipswich. 
In  1639  Dudley  moved  to  Roxbury,  where  he  lived  during  the 
remainder  of  his  life.  Two  or  three  years  later,  sometime 
before  1644,  Bradstreet  moved  to  the  plantation  about  the 
Cochichewick  Kiver,  which  became  Andover,  and  of  which  his 
family  were  among  the  first  settlers.  It  was  about  this  time, 
it  is  conjectured,  that  the  first  Bradstreet  house  here  was 
built. 

Anne  Bradstreet  wrote  at  first  for  her  own  pleasure  and 
that  of  her  family  and  friends,  with  no  thought  of  publishing. 
As  the  Rev.  John  Woodbridge  said  in  the  preface  to  the  first 
edition  of  her  poems,  they  were  "  the  fruit  of  but  some  few 
houres  curtailed  from  her  sleep  and  other  refreshment,"  and 
they  were  at  that  time  brought  to  public  view  without  her 
knowledge  and  contrary  to  her  expectation.  Woodbridge 
described  her  as  "  a  woman  honoured,  and  esteemed  where  she 
lives,  for  her  gracious  demeanour,  her  eminent  parts,  her  pious 
conversation,  her  courteous  disposition,  her  exact  diligence  in 
her  place,  and  discreet  managing  of  her  family  occasions," 


28 


LITERARY  PILGRIM  A  GES. 


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ri^l-H s  .r&£^  s^ 

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C  ^  i  ,    7^>rf  l?  '  -  v-^4a_2-^r     i       r~\    «*<s!«!!:         ' 


AT   THE  HOME   OF  ANNE  BRADSTREET.  29 

1 5 ut  while  she  was  accorded  all  these  virtues,  her  neighbors, 
or  some  of  them,  evidently  criticised  her  literary  proclivities, 
for  she  wrote  in  "  The  Prologue  "  :  — 

"I  am  obnoxious  to  each  carping  tongue 
Who  says  my  hand  a  needle  better  fits, 
A  Poets  pen  all  scorn  I  should  thus  wrong, 
For  such  despite  they  cast  on  Female  wits  : 
If  what  I  do  prove  well,  it  won't  advance, 
They'l  say  it's  stoln,  or  else  it  was  by  chance." 

John  Woodbridge  was  the  first  ordained  minister  of  the 
Andover  church ;  and  he  was  closely  connected  with  the  Brad- 
streets,  having  married  Anne's  sister,  Mercy  Dudley,  in  1639. 
Going  back  to  England  for  a  visit  in  1647,  it  is  assumed 
that  he  took  his  sister-in-law's  manuscript  poems  with  him 
and  there  arranged  for  their  publication  ;  for  the  first  edition, 
a  volume  in  small  16mo,  appeared  in  1650  while  he  was  in 
London.  The  prefatory  address  "  To  the  Reader,"  and  the 
introductory  poetical  address  "  To  my  dear  Sister  the  Author 
of  these  Poems,"  are  both  evidently  from  his  pen. 

Poetical  tributes  to  tne  author  were  also  printed  in  the 
introductory  pages.  Among  them  were  words  from  the  Rev. 
Nathaniel  Ward  of  Ipswich,  author  of  the  unique  "  Simple 
Cobler  of  Aggawam,"  who  was  Mrs.  Bradstreet's  minister  and 
neighbor  when  she  was  living  in  Ipswich ;  and  from  the 
Rev.  Benjamin  Woodbridge,  brother  of  the  Rev.  John,  like 
him  a  first  settler  of  Andover,  whose  name  stands  first  on  the 
list  of  Harvard  graduates.  Later  fulsome  praise  was  given 
her  work  by  learned  leaders.  John  Rogers,  president  of 
Harvard  from  1682  to  1684,  and  earlier  a  minister  of  Ipswich, 
whose  wife  was  a  niece  of  Mistress  Anne,  wrote  that  "  twice 
drinking  of  the  nectar  of  her  lines  "  left  him  «<  weltering  in 
delight."  Cotton  Mather  in  his  "Magnalia"  referred  to  her 
poems,  "  divers  times  printed,"  as  having  "  afforded  a  grateful 
entertainment  unto  the  ingenious,  and  a  monument  for  her 
memory  beyond  the  stateliest  marbles." 


30  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

The  second  edition,  like  the  first  a  16mo,  contained  the 
author's  revisions  and  some  later  productions,  as  the  title-page 
states.  It  was  brought  out  in  Boston  six  years  after  her 
death,  by  John  Foster,  who  had  issued  the  first  book  ever 
printed  in  Boston. 

Another  edition  appeared  also  in  Boston,  in  1758,  but 
without  a  publisher's  name.  This  was  a  reprint  of  the  second 
edition  in  large  form.  A  century  later,  in  1867,  all  of  her  ex- 
tant writings  were  brought  together  by  John  Harvard  Ellis, 
and  published  under  the  title  of  "  The  Works  of  Anne  Brad- 
street  in  Prose  and  Verse,"  Mr.  Ellis  supplying  a  valuable 
historical  introduction.  The  volume  is  a  handsome  quarto, 
bearing  the  imprint  of  Abram  E.  Cutter,  Charlestown ;  and 
the  edition  was  limited  to  two  hundred  and  fifty  numbered 
copies.  The  prose  section  is  arranged  under  the  titles  of 
"  Religious  Experiences  and  Occasional  Pieces  "  and  "  Medita- 
tions Divine  and  Moral,"  the  latter  in  seventy -seven  paragraphs. 
The  poems  were  reproduced  from  the  second  edition ;  and  the 
miscellaneous  prose  writings  printed  from  a  precious  relic  pre- 
served by  Mrs.  Bradstreet's  descendants,  —  a  small  manuscript 
book  which  belonged  to  her.  This  contains  the  "  Meditations  " 
in  her  own  handwriting,  some  verses  on.  two  sides  of  a  leaf  also 
in  her  handwriting,  and  several  pages  in  her  son  Simon's  hand- 
writing, being  a  copy  of  another  manuscript  book  of  hers.  The 
book  includes,  also,  a  Latin  translation  of  the  first  few  "  Medi- 
tations," and  their  dedication,  by  a  great-grandson,  the  Rev. 
Simon  Bradstreet,  minister  in  Marblehead  for  a  goodly  period 
from  1738.  Mr.  Ellis  gives  a  facsimile  of  Mistress  Brad- 
street's  handwriting,  which  Percy  was  shown.  He  was  able 
to  decipher  it  in  parts,  when  he  had  mastered  the  odd  spell- 
ing and  had  overcome  the  confusion  of  the  old  style  ss  with 
the/s. 

This  piece  was  written,  as  the  date  indicates,  in  the  Andover 
home.  But  most  Of  the  poems  which  were  printed  in  the  first 
London  edition  were  written  before  the  removal  of  the  family 


AT   THE  HOME   OF  ANNE  BRADSTREET.  31 

hither.  The  more  extended  poems  were  probably  composed  in 
the  Ipswich  home,  and  the  earliest  writings,  perhaps,  were  done 
in  the  home  in  "  Newe  Town."  Possibly  a  few  of  the  "  divers 
pleasant  and  serious  poems"  were  written  here  in  Andover; 
but  this  home  is  associated  especially  with  the  author's  more 
mature  work. 

Anne  Bradstreet  was  a  most  devout  woman,  almost  mor- 
bidly conscientious,  and  her  piety  is  reflected  in  her  writings. 
She  was  much  an  invalid ;  and,  as  Mr.  Ellis  says,  she  "  looked 
upon  her  various  maladies  as  tokens  of  divine  displeasure  at 
her  thoughtlessness  and  wrong-doing."  In  her  little  address  to 
her  "  dear  children,"  which  has  been  termed  her  autobiography, 
she  writes :  "  After  some  time  I  fell  into  a  lingering  sicknesse 
like  a  consumption,  together  with  a  lamenesse,  which  correction 
I  saw  the  Lord  sent  to  humble  and  try  me  and  doe  me  Good : 
and  it  was  not  altogether  ineffectual."  And  again :  "  Among 
all  my  experiences  of  God's  gracious  Dealings  with  me  I  have 
constantly  observed  this,  that  he  hath  never  suffered  me  long 
to  sitt  loose  from  him,  but  by  one  affliction  or  other  hath  made 
me  look  home  and  search  what  was  amisse — so  usually  thus 
it  hath  been  with  me  that  I  have  expected  correction  from  it, 
which  most  commonly  hath  been  upon  my  own  person,  in  sick- 
nesse, weakness,  paines  "...  and  so  on. 

Her  pleasantest  verses,  disclosing  the  most  poetic  feeling, 
were  on  domestic  subjects,  and  on  nature  and  the  rural  scenes 
about  her  Andover  home,  or  by  the  banks  of  the  Merrimac. 
This,  for  example,  from  her  "  Contemplations  "  : 

"Then  on  a  stately  Oak  I  cast  mine  eye, 
Whose  russling  top  the  Clouds  seem'd  to  aspire ; 
How  long  since  thou  wast  in  thine  Infancy  ? 
Thy  strength  and  stature,  more  thy  years  admire, 
Hath  hundred  winters  past  since  thou  wast  born? 
Or  thousand  since  thou  brakest  thy  shell  of  horn, 
If  so,  all  these  are  nought,  eternity  doth  scorn. 


32  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

I  heard  the  merry  grasshopper  then  sing, 

The  black  clad  Cricket,  bear  a  second  part, 

They  kept  one  tune,  and  plaid  on  the  same  string, 

Seeming  to  glory  in  their  little  Art. 

Shall  creatures  abject,  thus  their  voices  raise  ? 

And  in  their  kind  resound  their  maker's  praise: 

While  I  as  mute,  can  warble  forth  no  higher  layes. 

Under  the  cooling  shadow  of  a  stately  elm 

Close  sat  I  by  a  goodly  Rivers  side, 

Where  gliding  streams  the  Rocks  did  overwhelm  ; 

A  lovely  place,  with  pleasures  dignified. 

I  once  that  lov'd  the  shady  woods  so  well, 

Now  thought  the  rivers  did  the  trees  excel, 

And  if  the  sun  would  ever  shine,  there  would  1  dwell." 

Mistress  Bradstreet  was  the  mother  of  eight  children,  three 
of  whom  were  born  in  Andover.  Among  her  descendants  were 
the  celebrated  preacher  William  Ellery  Channing,  the  poet 
Richard  Henry  Dana,  the  elder,  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes,  and 
WTendell  Phillips. 

Four  years  after  her  death,  Simon  Bradstreet  took  a  second 
wife,  Anne  Downing  Gardner  of  Salem,  a  widow  of  six  months 
only.  Her  first  husband,  Captain  Joseph  Gardner,  had  been 
killed  in  the  Great  Swamp  Fight  with  the  Narragansett  Indians 
in  December,  1675 :  this  second  marriage  occurred  in  June 
1676.  Bradstreet  then  established  his  home  in  the  house  built 
years  before  by  his  new  wife's  father,  Emanuel  Downing,  Gov- 
ernor Winthrop's  brother-in-law.  This  building  long  remaining 
a  landmark,  came  to  be  known  as  the  old  Salem  Bradstreet 
house,  and  it  stood  on  the  lot  now  owned  by  the  Salem  Athe- 
naeum. Simon  Bradstreet  lived  twenty-one  years  longer,  serv- 
ing as  deputy  governor,  and  as  governor,  thirteen  years  in  all, 
and  died  in  his  Salem  home  full  of  honors,  at  the  age  of 
ninety-four. 

"  Ah,  yes,"  Percy  here  spoke  up,  "  these  interesting  facts 
came  out  during  our  historic  pilgrimage  to  Salem."  And  he 


AT   THE  HOME  Of  AXNE 


88 


34  LITERARY  PlLGlftMAGES. 

recalled  that  the  widow  Gardner  was  the  sister  of  that  George 
Downing,  a  member  of  the  first  class  graduating  at  Harvard 
College,  who  went  to  England,  engaged  in  politics  there,  mar- 
ried well,  became  Sir  George  Downing,  Bart.,  and,  serving 
successfully  two  masters,  held  the  post  of  ambassador  to  The 
Hague  under  Cromwell  first  and  Charles  II.  afterward.  Percy 
further  recalled  that  the  Downing  farm  in  Brooksby,  now  Pea- 
body,  became  the  farm  of  John  Procter,  one  of  the  most  prom- 
inent of  the  martyrs  to  the  witchcraft  delusion. 

Our  talk  finished,  we  were  shown  other  rooms  of  the  stout 
old  house,  and'  its  various  quaint  features ;  and  then  we  reluc- 
tantly took  our  departure,  heartily  thanking  our  new  friends 
for  the  rich  treat  they  had  afforded  us.  We  next  strolled  across 
the  fields  to  the  ancient  bury  ing-ground  near  by  the  site  of  the 
first  meeting-house,  where  vague  traditiqii  intimates  that  Anne 
Bradstreet's  grave  was  made.  But  if  it  were  here,  no  sign  of  it 
remains.  In  fact,  the  best  authorities  agree  that  her  burial-place 
is  absolutely  unknown. 

Coming  back  along  the  old  road,  we  stopped  and  admired  the 
still  handsome  gam br el-roofed  Phillips  manse,  which  Judge 
Samuel  Phillips  built  in  1735.  Here  his  distinguished  great- 
grandson,  Phillips  Brooks,  spent  much  of  his  boyhood  ;  and 
in  later  years,  as  we  know,  it  became  the  bishop's  summer 
home.  In  the  south-east  parlor,  so  Percy  was  told,  Wash- 
ington was  once  received  by  Madam  Phebe  Phillips  and  her 
friends.  It  was  this  good  lady,  he  was  reminded,  who  so  gen- 
erously continued  the  family  benefactions  to  the  Academy  on 
Andover  Hill,r  and  was  herself  a  founder  of  the  Seminary.  In 
the  words  of  contemporaries,  she  "  was  graced  with  every  social 
accomplishment,"  and  her  "  style  of  conversation  surpassed 
that  of  any  one,  male  or  female,  in  this  country." 

A  ten-minute  walk  brought  us  to  the  railway  station,  and 
after  a  short  wait  we  took  the  train  for  Haverhill. 


IV. 

IN  WHITTIER'S    COUNTRY. 

Along  the  poet's  beloved  Merrimac. —  Points  about  Haverhill  celebrated  in 
his  poems. —  The  old  homestead  where  he  was  born. —  Scenes  made 
memorable  by  him. —  Pictures  from  "Snow  Bound"  :  the  family 
group  about  the  great  fireplace. —  Life  on  the  farm. —  Early  poems 
under  the  influence  of  Burns. —  The  first  poem  in  print. —  First  meet- 
ing of  Whittier  and  Garrison  at  the  homestead. —  The  poet's  earlier 
editorial  work. 

AT  Haverhill  we  were  in  Whittier'  s  country.  Alongside 
the  little  hill-city  winds  the  beloved  Merrimac  which  the  poet 
has  made  classic,  the  scene  of  "  The  Bridal  of  Pennacook," 
« The  Exiles,"  «  The  Norseman,"  and  other  favorite  poems  ; 
the  river  of  which  he  sang : 

"  Home  of  my  fathers  !  —  I  have  stood 
Where  Hudson  rolled  his  lordly  flood : 
Seen  sunrise  rest  and  sunset  fade 
Along  his  frowning  Palisade; 
Looked  down  the  Appalachian  peak 
On  Juniata's  silver  streak; 
Have  seen  along  his  valley  gleam 
The  Mohawk's  softly  winding  stream  ; 
The  level  light  of  sunset  shine 
Through  broad  Potomac's  hem  of  pine; 
And  autumn's  rainbow-tinted  banner 
Hang  lightly  o'er  the  Susquehanna  ; 
Yet  whereso'er  his  step  might  be, 
Thy  wandering  child  looked  back  to  thee  ! " 

The  city  itself  was  the  frontier  village  called  by  the  Indians 
Pentucket,  the  scene  of  the  midnight  massacre  of  1708  por- 
trayed in  his  poem  of  "  Pentucket." 

35 


36  LI  TEE  ART  PILGRIMAGES. 

Where  now  is  the  thickening  town,  stood  Hugh  Tallant's 

"  Sycamores," 

"  In  the  outskirts  of  the  village 
On  the  river's  winding  shores," 

those  "  Occidental  plane-trees "  which  "  the  rustic  Irish  glee- 
man/'  the  first  Irishman  in  Haverhill,  planted  early  in  the 
seventeenth  century,  in  front  of  his  master's  mansion. 

In  the  town  center  was  the  Haverhill  Academy  where  the 
poet  got  his  "higher  education,"  in  two  short  terms  of  six 
months  each  in  1827  and  1828,  paying  his  own  way  through 
the  first  term  by  his  earnings  from  making  slippers,  —  hence 
his  sometime  sobriquet  of  "  the  shoemaker  poet," — and  through 
the  second  term  by  wages  earned  in  school-teaching  and  in 
keeping  books  for  a  Haverhill  storekeeper.  So  closely  did 
he  calculate  every  item  of  expense  at  the  outset,  his  biog- 
rapher, Mr.  Pickard  says,  "  that  he  knew  before  the  begin- 
ning of  the  term  that  he  would  have  twenty-five  cents  to  spare 
at  its  close,  and  he  actually  had  this  sum  of  money  in  his 
pocket  when  his  half  year  of  study  was  over."  For  the  dedi- 
catory exercises  of  the  Academy,  of  which  he  was  among  the 
first  pupils,  he  contributed  an  ode  which  gave  him  "  a  certain 
social  and  literary  distinction  at  the  start ;  "  while  already, 
though  under  twenty,  he  had  a  local  reputation  as  a  rising 
poet. 

In  East  Haverhill  lies  Kenoza  Lake,  the  "  Great  Pond"  of 
the  poet's  boyhood,  upon  which  he  bestowed  the  Indian  name 
which  signifies  pickerel,  in  his  poem  of  "  Kenoza  Lake,"  dedi- 
cating its  shores  to  public  park  uses. 

And  beyond,  farther  out  in  East  Haverhill,  the  original 
East  Parish,  still  in  rural  parts,  is  the  Whittier  homestead,  the 
poet's  birthplace. 

We  could  take  a  trolley-car  at  the  railway  station  direct  for 
this  shrine ;  but  Percy  wished,  first,  to  stroll  a  little  about  the 
city,  and  see  some  of  the  spots  commemorated  by  the  poet,  as  I 
had  been  describing. 


IN    WHITTIEKS    COUNTRY.  37 

The  walk  finished,  we  boarded  our  car  in  Washington  Square. 
It  was  a  three-mile  ride  out ;  and  the  route  carried  us  through  a 
pleasant  residential  section  of  the  city,  and  into  the  open 
country.  At  length,  after  a  succession  of  turns  in  the  leafy 
road,  —  it  was  the  old  Haverhill  and  Amesbury  highway,  —  the 
conductor  called  our  "  station  "  —  "  Whittier  house  ;  "  —  and 


WHITTIER'S    BIRTHPLACE,   HAVERHILL. 

to  the  left,  a  few  rods  back  from  the  highway,  the  ancient  home- 
stead appeared  in  picturesque  setting,  while  by  the  road-side 
loomed  up  a  massive  granite  guidepost,  or  tablet,  marking  the 
place. 

As  we  approached  it  by  the  crossroad  on  the  east  side,  Percy 
expressed  surprise  at  its  well-preserved  appearance,  having  heard 
that  it  was  more  than  two  centuries  old.  I  related  with  much 
satisfaction  how  the  homestead  had  been  saved,  its  surround- 
ings restored  as  near  as  possible  to  their  original  condition,  and 


38  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

opened  to  the  public  "  that  thereby  the  memory  .of  and  love 
for  the  poet  and  the  man  may  be ,  cherished  and  perpetuated." 
"  This  was  accomplished,"  I  related,  "  through  the  worthy  act 
of  a  citizen  of  Haverhill,  the  late; Hon.  James  H.  Carleton,  in 
purchasing,  the  estate  soon  after  Whittier's  death  in  1892,  and 
transferring  it  .by  deed  of  gift  to  the  Haverhill  Whittier  Club, 
which  has  carried  out  his  wishes  as  expressed  therein.  It  was 
Mr.  Carleton's  desire  that  the  natural  features  of  the  landscape 
should  be  preserved,  and  this  has  been  done  so  far  as  possible. 
But  nature  has  effected  certain  changes,  as  you  will  see  when 
we  compare  the  present  setting  with  that  of  Whittier's  boyhood 
and  youth,  as  described  by  the  poet  himself,  and  by  his  biogra- 
pher." And  we  stopped  in  the  road,  Percy's  eye  roaming  over 
the  scene  spread  about  him,  while  I  read  these  descriptions  from 
my  notebook.  First,  the  poet's,  given  in  one  of  his  early  prose 
sketches,  «  The  Fish  I  Didn't  Catch : " 

"The  house  was  surrounded  by  woods  in  all  directions  save  to  the 
south-east,  where  a  break  in  the  leafy  wall  revealed  a  vista  of  low  green 
meadows,  picturesque  with  wooded  islands  and  jutting  capes  of  upland. 
Through  these,  a  small  brook,  noisy  enough  as  it  foamed,  rippled,  and 
laughed  down  its  rocky  falls  by  our  garden-side,  wound  silently  and  scarcely 
visible,  to  a  still  larger  stream,  known  as  the  Country  Brook.  This  brook 
in  its  turn,  after  doing  duty  at  two  or  three  saw  and  grist  mills,  the  clack 
of  which  we  could  hear  in  still  days  across  the  intervening  woodlands, 
found  its  way  to  the  great  river,  and  the  river  took  it  up  and  bore  it 
down  to  the  great  sea." 

Then  the  biographer's  filling  in  of  the  picture  :  — 

"Job's  Hill,  named  for  an  Indian  chief  of  the  neighborhood, 
its  great  dome  now  almost  bare  of  trees,  in  Whittier's  youth  well  covered 
with  giant  oaks,  rises  so  steeply  from  the  right  bank  at  the  foot  of  the  gar- 
den that  it  is  difficult  for  many  rods  to  get  a  foothold.  .  .  .  From  the  left 
bank  of  the  noisy  brook  the  garden  lot  sloped  gently  upward  toward  the 
front  of  the  house,  till  it  met  a  terrace  upon  which  were  the  flower  garden 
and  the  well  with  its  ancient  sweep.  .  .  .  Between  the  brook  and  the  house 
[which  faces  south-east]  was  a  row  of  butternuts,  walnuts,  and  maples, 
and  at  the  gateway  stood  picturesque  Lombardy  poplars.  .  .  .  Ontheoppo- 


IN  WHITTIER*  S  COUNTRY.  39 

site  side  of  the  road  [this  crossroad]  were  the  barn,  a  granary,  and  an  an- 
cient shop  once  supplied  with  a  forge.  The  barn  was  built  .  .  .  when 
the  poet  was  thirteen  years  of  age.  The  old  barn,  on  the  same  side  of  the 
road  with  the  house  [and  behind  it],  stood  for  some  years  after  the  erec- 
tion of  the  new  one.  Mr.  Whittier  once  told  the  writer  that  the  old  barn 
had  no  doors,  and  the  winter  winds  whistled  through  it,  and  snow  drifted 
upon  its  floors,  for  more  than  a  century.  The  horses  and  cattle  were  but 
slightly  protected  in  their  stalls  and  'tie  up.'  This  was  the  early  practice 
throughout  New  England.  .  .  .  The  pioneers  and  their  descendants  for 
four  or  five  generations  adopted  the  policy  of  "toughening1'  themselves 
by  exposure  to  cold,  and  they  saw  no  reason  for  making  their  cattle  more 
comfortable  than  themselves.  .  .  .  Almost  two  centuries  passed  away  be- 
fore barns  were  made  comfortable,  arid  flannels  and  overcoats  ceased  to  be 
regarded  as  extravagances:  .  .  .  The  'new  barn'  .  .  was  built  with 
most  of  our  modern  conveniences.  [It  has  since  been  doubled  in  length, 
but  the  end  toward  the  road  is  practically  unchanged.]" 

Of  the  features  that  are  still  preserved  Percy  found  most 
charming  the  brook,  wandering  through  the  grounds  and 
gliding  beneath  the  bridge  on  our  crossroad.  The  stone  wall 
between  the  brook  and  the  gateway  attracted  him  particularly 
when  he  learned  that  the  boy  Whittier  had  helped  to  build  it, 
and  that  it  was  the  "  garden  wall "  of  "  The  Barefoot  Boy  " 

"Laughed  the  brook  for  my  delight 
Through  the  day  and  through  the  night, 
Whispering  at  the  garden  wall, 
Talked  with  me  from  fall  to  fall." 

And  it  was  the  same  garden  wall  that  is  alluded  to  in 
"Telling  the  Bees/'  the  scene,  in  detail,  of  the  homestead. 
The  beehives  were  on  the  terrace  near  the  now  restored  well- 
sweep,  — 

" ranged  in  the  sun; 

And  down  by  the  brink 

Of  the  brook  are  her  poor  flowers,  weed  o'errun, 
Pansy  and  daffodil,  rose  and  pink. 

The  tall  poplars  by  the  house  have  disappeared,  but  some  of 
the  other  trees  yet  remain. 


40  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

Then  we  passed  through  the  gateway,  noting  at  its  left  the 
stone  " bridle-post "  mentioned  in  "Snow  Bound,"  when  the 
old  familiar  sights  about  the  farm  took  marvelous  shapes  from 
the  snow  — 

"The  bridle-post  an  old  man  sat 
With  loose  flung  coat  and  high  cocked  hat"  — 

and  stepping  up  to  the  corner  porch,  we  entered  the  house. 

The  porch  gave  directly  upon  the  great  kitchen  of  generous 
width,  and  extending  almost  the  entire  length  of  the  house, 
thirty-six  feet.  Here  the  restoration  to  its  condition  and  fit- 
tings of  eighty  years  ago  appeared  to  be  quite  complete,  and 
Percy's  first  sweeping  glance  over  "  the  old  rude-furnished 
room  "  filled  him  with  delight.  Here  in  the  massive  chimney, 
around  which  the  house  is  built  after  the  fashion  of  the  ancient 
Bradstreet  house  in  North  Andover,  was  the  huge  fireplace, 
eight  feet  wide,  with  the  old  crane  and  its  trammels  swinging 
at  one  side ;  the  oven  at  the  back  on  the  other  side,  and  the 
Turk's  head  andirons,  where  — 

"  We  piled,  with  care,  our  nightly  stack 
Of  wood  against  the  chimney-back,— 
The  oaken  log,  green,  huge  and  thick, 
And  on  its  top  the  stout  back-stick  ; 
The  knotty  forestick  laid  apart, 
And  filled  between  with  curious  art 
The  ragged  brush  ;   then,  hovering  near 
We  watched  the  first  red  blaze  appear, 
Heard  the  sharp  crackle,  caught  the  gleam  > 
On  whitewashed  wall  and  sagging  beam, 
Until  the  old  rude-furnished  room 
Burst,  flower-like,  into  rosy  bloom." 

Against  the  opposite  wall  was  the  cupboard,  alluded  to  in 
"  Yankee  Gypsies,"  in  the  "  Literary  Recreations."  Close  by 
stood  the  stout  old  kitchen  table,  upon  which  "  the  mother " 
and  "  the  girls  "  prepared  the  bakings  for  the  oven.  Scattered 
about  were  the  furniture  and  the  family  heirlooms  restored  to 


IN    WHITTIER'S   COUNTRY.  41 

their  old  places.  Off  from  the  porch  entrance  by  the  eastern 
window,  where  it  had  stood  an  hundred  years  before  Whittier's 
day,  was  the  ancient  desk  of  the  great  grandfather,  the  first 
Joseph  Whittier,  at  which  the  poet  wrote  his  earliest  verses, 
his  momentous  pamphlet  on  slavery,  "Justice  and  Expedi- 
ency," and  many  of  his  earlier  sketches. 

At  the  farther  northwest  corner,  a  step  or  two  above  the 
kitchen  floor,  opened  the  "  mother's  room,"  furnished,  we  sup- 
posed, as  in  the  time  of  this  sweet  woman.  In  the  southwest 
corner,  and  at  the  front  of  the  house,  opened  the  "  spare  room," 
sometimes  used  as  a  parlor,  Mr.  Pickard  tells  us,  and  some- 
times as  a  bedroom,  in  which  on  December  17,  1807,  our  poet 
was  born.  In  the  southeast  corner,  and  at  the  front,  opened 
the  family  sitting  room,  i  Both  these  rooms,  as  we  afterward 
saw,  opened  also  into  .the  little  front  entry,  from  which  the 
steep  front  stairs,  turning  against  the  back  of  the  chimney,  as 
in  the  Bradstreet  house,  ascend  to  the  second  story.  A 
straight  flight  of  back  stairs,  almost  as  steep  as  a  ladder,  reach 
up  from  the  western  porch.  In  the  second  story  was  the 
"  boys'  chamber,"  where  — 

"Within  our  beds  awhile  we  heard 
The  wind  that  round  the  gables  roared, 
With  now  and  then  a  ruder  shock, 
Which  made  our  very  bedsteads  rock. 
We  heard  the  loosened  clapboards  tost, 
The  board-nails  snapping  in  the  frost ; 
And  on  ns,  through  the  unplastered  wall, 
Felt  the  light  sifted  snow-flakes  fall. 
But  sleep  stole  on,  as  sleep  will  do 
When  hearts  are  light  and  life  is  new." 

On  this  floor  are  four  other  chambers,  roughly  or  partially 
finished,  these,  and  the  "  boys'  chamber,"  all  grouped  around  a 
larger  and  unfinished  one.  Above  is  the  attic,  with  its  rafters 
studded  with  nails  and  pegs,  from  which,  as  Mr.  Pickard  pleas- 
antly pictures  it,  "  five  generations  of  careful  Quakers  have 


42 


LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 


suspended  braids  of  seedcorn,  bunches  of  medicinal  herbs,  and 
all  the  articles  to  which  the  ancient  New  England  attic  is  con- 
secrate, and  on  the  floors  of  which  the  boys  of  two  centuries 
have  spread  butternuts,  walnuts  and  acorns  around  the  great 
chimney." 

Sitting  in  the  old  kitchen,  with  a  copy  of  "  Snow  Bound  " 
before  us,  and  my  note-book  of  extracts  and  memoranda  for 


KITCHEN,    WHITTIER    HOMESTEAD. 

ready  reference,  we  pictured  the  family  group  of  Whittier's 
youth,  gathered  about  the  great  fireplace,  and  recalled  the 
family  history,  our  talk  running  in  this  wise  : 

"  The  father, 

'  A  prompt,  decisive  man,  no  breath 
Our  father  wasted  '  .   .  . 

He  was  John  Whittier,  fourth  in  line  of  the  household  heads 
from  Thomas  Whittier,  the  sturdy  pioneer  who  built  the  house, 
with  the  help  of  his  sons  hewing  its  stout  oaken  beams  on  the 
brook  bank.  The  successive  heads  were  in  this  order  :  Thomas, 


IN   WHITTIER'S   COUNTRY.  43 

from  about  1688,  presumed  to  be  the  date  of  the  homestead,  to 
his  death  in  1696  at  seventy-six;  Joseph,  Thomas's  youngest 
son,  from  1710  (after  the  death  of  Thomas's  widow)  till  his 
death  in  1739,  aged  seventy  ;  Joseph  2d,  Joseph's  youngest 
child,  till  his  death  in  1796,  at  eighty ;  then  this  John, 
Joseph  2d's  youngest  son,  from  his  father's  death.  John  died 
in  1830,  at  seventy. 

"  Each  was  a  notable  man  in  his  day.  Thomas,  the  pioneer, 
came  over  from  England  in  1638,  when  he  was  eighteen  years 
old.  With  him  were  two  uncles,  John  and  Henry  Kolfe,  and 
a  lass  bearing  the  winsome  name  of  Ruth  Green,  a  distant  rel- 
ative, whom,  he  married  a  few  months  after  his  arrival.  He 
settled  first  in  Salisbury  on  land  now  within  the  limits  of 
Amesbury  on  the  Powow  River ;  —  the  '  swift  Powow '  of  Whit- 
tier's  verse  —  a  tributary  of  the  Merrimac,  the  neighborhood  of 
which  we  are  to  visit  in  the  next  stage  of  this  Pilgrimage. 
Thence  he  removed  to  Newbury,  and  thence  came  to  Haverhill, 
settling  on  the  banks  of  Country  Brook,  then  called  East 
Meadow  Brook.  There,  at  a  point  about  half  a  mile  southeast 
of  this  homestead,  he  built  a  log  house  in  which  he  lived  with 
his  large  family  for  forty  years.  In  this  rude  home  were  born 
all  of  his  ten  children,  save  the  eldest.  Five  of  them  were 
sons,  each  six  feet  tall,  and  each  stalwart  like  the  father  —  Mr. 
Pickard  quotes  family  tradition  that  he  was  of  gigantic  strength, 
making  the  astonishing  statement  that  he  weighed  more  than 
three  hundred  pounds  before  he  was  twenty-one. 

"  When  living  in  Salisbury  Thomas  was  a  representative  in 
the  General  Court,  and  in  the  Haverhill  settlement  he  was 
steadily  a  leading  man.  He  was  interested  in  the  Quaker  doc- 
trines, and  suffered  for  advocating  clemency  toward  Quakers, 
but  it  does  not  appear  that  he  ever  joined  the  Society  of 
Friends.  The  family  were  living  in  the  log  cabin  and  in  this 
homestead  through  the  long  continued  Indian  troubles  in  which 
Haverhill  so  grievously  suffered.  Occasionally,  says  Mr.  Pick- 
ard, the  Indians  in  their  war  paint  passed  up  Country  Brook, 


44  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

and  the  evening  firelight  in  this  big  kitchen  '  would  reveal  a 
savage  face  at  the  window.'  But  the  Whittier  household  was 
never  harmed,  and  their  freedom  from  molestation  may  be 
accounted  for  by  the  respect  of  the  savages  which  Thomas 
Whittier  had  won  by  his  fearless  and  just  dealings  with  them. 

"  From  Joseph  Whittier,  Thomas's  successor  in  the  home- 
stead mastership,  our  poet  was  in  direct  line.  Joseph's  wife, 
the  poet's  great  grandmother,  was  Mary  Peasley,  grand- 
daughter of  Joseph  Peasley,  in  his  time  the  leading  Quaker  of 
Haverhill.  Joseph  Whittier  became  a  Quaker  of  prominence 
in  the  community,  and  thereafter  nearly  all  of  his  descendants 
for  four  generations  were  Quakers.  The  Peasleys  also  lived 
in  this  East  Parish,  not  so  very  far  from  the  Whittiers ;  and 
the  Peasley  homestead  was  used  as  a  garrison  house,  a  place  of 
refuge  for  the  settlers  on  occasion  of  attack,  during  the  French 
and  Indian  wars.  Joseph  and  Mary  Whittier  had  nine  chil- 
dren. 

"Joseph  2d,  the  third  head  of  the  homestead,  married 
Sarah  Greenleaf,  of  West  Newbury,  on  the  opposite  side  of  the 
river,  of  a  family  early  settled  there,  and  of  Huguenot  descent. 
They  had  eleven  children,  six  of  whom  lived  to  maturity ;  and 
only  three  of  these  married  —  Joseph,  Obadiah,  and  John. 
The  poet  was  named  for  his  father,  and  for  his  grandmother 
Greenleaf's  family. 

"  John  Whittier  was  of  stalwart  frame,  strong  of  muscle 
and  of  character,  beyond  middle  life,  in  his  forty-eighth  year, 
when  the  poet  was  born.  Before  his  marriage  he  had  journeyed 
through  the  wilderness  of  .New  Hampshire  into  Canada,  and 
engaged  in  barter  among  the  Indians  and  trappers  ;  and  tales 
of  his  adventures  with  Indians,  and  of  his  sojourn  in  the 
French  villages,  were  recounted  in  the  circle  gathered  about 
this  generous  fire-place. 

"  The  mother.  She  was  of  heroic  Quaker  lineage,  and  born 
in  'the  Indian-haunted  region  of  Somersworth,  New  Hamp- 
shire, between  Dover  and  Portsmouth,'  a  woman  of  rare  good- 


IN   WHIT  TIER' 8  COUNTRY.  45 

ness  and  benignity,  her  kind  face  '  full  and  fair,  her  eye  dark 
and  expressive  : ' 

1  Our  mother,  while  she  turned  her  wheel 
Or  run  the  new-knit  stocking  heel, 
Told  how  the  Indian  hordes  came  down 
At  midnight  .on  Cocheco  town, 
And  how  her  own  great-uncle  bore 
His  cruel  scalp-mark  to  fourscore. 
Recalling  in  her  fitting  phrase, 
So  rich  and  picturesque  and  free, 
(The  common  unrhymed  poetry 
Of  simple  life  and  country  ways,) 
The  story  of  her  early  days, — 
She  made  us  welcome  to  her  home  ; 
Old  hearths  grew  wide  to  give  us  room.' 

"  She  was  Abigail  Hussey  Whittier,  twenty-one  years  her 
husband's  junior.  Her  father,  Samuel  Hussey  of  New  Hamp- 
shire, was  a  descendant  of  Christopher  Hussey,  who  was  a  con- 
temporary of  Thomas  Whittier  in  Haverhill,  and  was  associ- 
ated with  him  in  standing  out  for  the  persecuted  Quakers. 
Christopher  Hussey,  before  he  came  out  from  old  Boston  in 
England,  married  Theodate  Bachelor,  daughter  of  the  Rev. 
Stephen  Bacheler,  a  most  remarkable  man,  who,  after  long 
preaching  as  a  Nonconformist  minister  in  English  pulpits,  came 
to  New  England  at  the  age  of  seventy-one.  For  the  twenty- 
two  years  that  he  remained  here,  he  was  in  pretty  constant  con- 
flict with  the  Puritan  authorities  because  of  his  independent 
ways.  At  the  age  of  seventy-eight,  in  1639,  the  vigorous  old 
man  went  down  the  eastern  coast  from  Lynn,  with  Christopher 
Hussey,  and  planted  the  ocean-side  town  of  Hampton,  New 
Hampshire,  where  he  was  made  the  first  settled  minister.  At 
the  venerable  age  of  eighty-nine  he  took  to  himself  a  third 
wife.  Not  long  after,  he  separated  from  her,  and  returned  to 
England.  He  was  then  ninety-two,  and  he  died  in  his  hun- 
dredth year.  A  daughter  of  one  of  his  sons  was  the  grand- 
mother of  Daniel  Webster,  and  so  the  statesman  and  the  poet 


46  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

were  kinsmen.  His  was  the  '  Bacheler  eye,'  dark,  deep  set,  and 
lustrous,  which  was  so  marked  a  peculiarity  of  both  Webster 
and  Whittier. 

"  Next  <  Aunt  Mercy/  She  was  the  mother's  youngest  sis- 
ter, Mercy  Evans  Hussey,  and  she  had  had  her  romance : 

'  The  sweetest  woman  ever  Fate 
Perverse  denied  a  household  mate, 
Who,  lonely,  homeless,  not  the  less 
Found  peace  in  love's  unselfishness. 
And  welcome  wheresoe'er  she  went, 
A  calm  and  gracious  element, 
Whose  presence  seemed  the  sweet  income, 
And  womanly  atmosphere  of  home.' 

"  Then  l  Uncle  Moses.'  He  was  the  father's  bachelor 
brother,  Moses  Whittier,  who  owned  the  farm  with  him,  and 
spent  all  his  life  at  the  homestead  ;  who  delighted  in  hunting, 
fishing,  and  story-telling ;  who  was  the  companion  of  the  boys 
in  their  country  rambles  ;  a  man  of  blameless,  simple  life  : 

'  Our  uncle,  innocent  of  books, 
Was  rich  in  lore  of  fields  and  brooks, 
The  ancient  teachers  never  dumb 
Of  Nature's  unhoused  lyceum. 

A  simple,  guileless,  childlike  man, 
Content  to  live  where  life  began  ; 
Strong  only  on  his  native  grounds, 
The  little  world  of  sights   and  sounds 
Whose  girdle  was  the  parish  bounds 
Whereof  his  fondly  partial  pride 
The  common  features  magnified.' 

"  Then  the  poet's  elder  sister,  Mary  :  — 

*  A  full,  rich  nature,  free  to  trust, 
Truthful  and  almost  sternly  just, 
Impulsive,  earnest,  prompt  to  act, 
And  make  her  generous  thought  a  fact, 
Keeping  with  many  a  light  disguise 
The  secret  of  self-sacrifice.' 


IN   WIIITTIER'S   COUNTRY.  17 

"  The  other  sister,  Elizabeth.  She  was  '  the  pet  and  pride 
of  the  household,  one  of  the  rarest  of  women/  the  poet's  sym- 
pathetic supporter  and  co-worker  in  the  unpopular  reforms  he 
advocated,  herself  gifted  with  the  poetic  spirit :  — 

'  As  one  who  held  herself  a  part 
Of  all  she  saw,  and  let  her  heart 
Against  the  household  bosom  lean, 
Upon  the  motley-braided  mat 
Our  youngest  and  our  dearest  sat;, 
Lifting  her,  large,  sweet,  asking  eyes.' 

"  The  only  brother,  Matthew  Franklin.  He  was  five  years 
younger  than  the  poet ;  and  they  two  alone  of  the  family  circle 
were  living  when  '  Snow  Bound '  was  written,  in  1865  :  — 

*  Ah,  brother,  only  I  and  thou 
Are  left  of  all  that  circle  now, — 
The  dear  home  faces  whereupon 
That  fitful  firelight  paled  and  shone.' 

"  Matthew  married  Amy,  a  daughter  of  Joseph  Rochemont 
de  Poyen,  cousin  of  Count  Vipart.  The  count's  first  wife, 
Mary  Ingalls  of  Haverhill,  was  the  heroine  of  Whittier's  '  The 
Countess.'  Matthew  became  an  earnest  anti-slavery  man,  and 
in  middle  life,  while  living  in.Portland,  published  a  series  of 
satirical  letters  directed  at  the  pro-slavery  politicians,  over  the 
signature  of  '  Ethan  Spike  of  Hornby/  For  the  last  twelve 
years  of  his  life  he  was  in  the  Boston  Custom  House.  He  died 
in  1883,  at  seventy-one. 

"  Last  the  poet  himself :  <  tall,  slight,  and  very  erect,  a  bash- 
ful youth,  but  never  awkward/  thus  a  contemporary  has  de- 
scribed him  at  the  age  of  nineteen.  Another  at  this  period  re- 
calls the  l  liveliness  of  his  temper,  his  ready  wit,  his  perfect 
courtesy,  and  infallible  sense  of  justice/  In  him  were  mani- 
fest the  influence  of  his  Quaker  bringing  up,  and  the  refinement 
of  this  country  home  —  though  isolated,  enjoying  the  best  social 
privileges  of  the  town,  drawing  around  it  <  a  circle  of  more 


48  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

than  usual  cultivation/  its  hospitality  proverbial.  He  was 
quiet  and  thoughtful  from  childhood,  with  a  head  full  of  fan- 
cies and  day-dreams.  He  began  to  make  verses  when  a  school- 
boy, at  school  and  in  the  evening  at  home  after  the  chores 
were  done,  filling  his  slate  with  rhymes  instead  of  l  sums.' 
He  was  none  the  less  a  thorough  going,  wholesome  farmer  boy. 
Though  never  robust,  he  performed  his  full  share  of  farm  work, 
milking  the  seven  cows,  driving  the  oxen,  caring  for  the  sheep  ; 
but  the  swinging  of  the  flail  by  which  the  grain  was  threshed 
in  the  barn  was  beyond  his  strength,  so  this  task  fell  to  his 
hardier  brother. 

"This  family  group  was  broken  first  when  Whittier  was 
seventeen,  by  the  death  of  '  Uncle  Moses,'  who  was  killed  by 
a  falling  tree  that  he  was  cutting  down.  A  few  years  later, 
Mary  married  and  went  to  town  to  live.  Then  the  father  died. 
"  Six  months  after  the  father's  death,  the  farm  was  sold  and 
the  family  life  in  the  homestead  closed,  to  be  taken  up  in  the 
cottage  in  Amesbury  which  was  then  purchased.  That  was  in 
1836,  when  Whittier  was  twenty-nine,  already  the  author  of 
more  than  a  hundred  published  poems,  with  a  reputation  as 
an  editor,  a  politician,  and  as  an  anti-slavery  leader." 

"  It  seems  odd,"  Percy  observed,  "  that  in  this  secluded 
country  home,  with  an  education  limited  to  two  short  terms  in 
an  academy,  and  with  no  literary  companionship,  he  should 
have  accomplished  so  much  and  such  varied  work,  and  won 
renown  at  so  early  an  age." 

"  The  same  thought  has  impressed  others  who  have  traced 
the  beginnings  of  his  career.  Underwood,  in  his  biographical 
and  critical  sketch  of  the  poet,  declares  his  quick  acquirement 
with  his  poor  outfit,  of  the  mastery  of  verse,  to  be  one  of  the 
mysteries  of  genius.  With  only  a  brief  time  given  ,to  study, 
he  seems  to  have  got  at  the  core  of  knowledge/  His  first 
acquaintance  with  poetry  was  limited  to  the  'songs  of  one  man 
written  in  an  obscure  dialect,  yet  that  one  guide  had  led  him 
into  the  land  of  immortal  day-dreams.' 


IN   WHITTIER'S  COUNTRY.  49 

"  This  man  was  Robert  Burns,  and  Whittier  has  given  us 
the  story  of  his  introduction  to  his  songs.  It  came  through  a 
wandering  old  Scotchman  who  chanced  at  the  farm,  and 
received  the  entertainment  of  the  kitchen,  as  wanderers  and 
peddlers  were  wont  to  do  in  those  unsuspicious  times  when  the 
tramp  as  we  know  him  was  unknown.  '  After  eating  his  bread 
and  cheese,  and  drinking  his  mug  of  cider,  he  gave  us  Bonnie 
Doon,  Highland  Mary  and  Auld  Lang  Syne.  He  had  a  full, 
rich  voice,  and  entered  heartily  into  the  spirit  of  his  lyrics. 
I  have  since  listened  to  the  same  melodies  from  the  lips  of 
Dempster  (than  whom  the  Scottish  bard  had  had  no  sweeter  or 
truer  interpreter) :  but  the  skillful  performance  of  the  artist 
lacked  the  novel  charm  of  the  gaberlunzie's  singing  in  the  old 
farm-house  kitchen.'  Then  the  poet's  reminiscence  continues, 
<  When  I  was  fourteen  years  old,  my  first  schoolmaster,  Joshua 
Coffin  .  .  .  brought  with  him  to  our  house  a  volume  of 
Burns's  poems,  from  which  he  read,  greatly  to  my  delight.  I 
begged  him  to  leave  the  book  with  me,  and  set  myself  at  once 
to  the  task  of  mastering  the  glossary  of  the  Scottish  dialect  at 
its  close.  This  was  about  the  first  poetry  I  had  ever  read 
(with  the  exception  of  that  of  the  Bible,  of  which  I  had  been  a 
close  student),  and  it  had  a  lasting  influence  upon  me.  I  be- 
gan to  m&ke  rhymes  myself,  and  to  imagine  stories  and 
adventures/ ) 

"  Meanwhile,  Whittier  had  absorbed  his  father's  little  library, 
composed  mostly  of  journals  and  disquisitions  of  the  pioneers 
of  the  Friends'  Society,  with  one  dreary  poem,  'The  Davideis,' 
by  Thomas  Ellwood,  an  English  Quaker  and  friend  of  Milton. 
And  other  books  had  come  in  his  way.  Whenever  he  heard  of 
a  book  of  biography  or  of  travel  in  a  friendly  hand,  he  would 
walk  miles  to  borrow  it.  When  he  went  to  the  academy,  or 
perhaps  before,  he  had  access  to  the  small  but  well  chosen 
library  of  Dr.  Elias  Weld,  the  'wise  old  doctor'  of  'Snow 
Bound,'  to  whom  the  poem  of  '  The  Countess '  was  inscribed. 
At  this  period  the  circulating  library  of  the  village  book- 


50  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

seller  was  t  the  opening  of  a  new  world  of  enjoyment '  to  him  ; 
and  it  was  his  good  fortune  to  board  through  the  week-days  in 
the  cultivated  family  of  Abijah  W.  Thayer,  then  the  editor  of 
the  Haverhill  Gazette,  who  became  one  of  his  most  valuable 
friends  and  advisers. 

"  Whittier's  first  poem  in  print  appeared  when  he  was 
eighteen.  It  was  published  in  the  Newburyport  Free  Press, 
much  to  his  astonishment,  for  it  had  been  sent  to  the  editor 
without  his  knowledge.  This  editor  was  William  Lloyd 
Garrison,  and  the  Free  Press  had  been  recently  started  by  him 
to  advance  humanitarian  reforms.  It  came  regularly  into  the 
Whittier  homestead,  the  father  having  become  an  early  sub- 
scriber. Confident  that  her  brother's  compositions  were  equal 
in  merit  to  those  she  saw  there,  the  sister,  Mary,  was  moved  to 
venture  this  poem  for  its  <  Poet's  Corner.'  Selecting  it  from  a 
mass  of  verses  which  the  youth  had  already  written,  covering 
several  foolscap  pages,  she  forwarded  it  by  the  postman  with- 
out intimating  to  the  editor  its  source  or  authorship,  simply 
signing  the  initial  <  W.' 

"  When  the  paper  containing  it  came  to  the  farm,  Greenleaf 
was  at  work  with  his  father  mending  a  stone  wall  by  the  road 
side.  The  postman,  passing  on  horseback,  tossed  the  paper  to 
him,  and  opening  it,  he  turned  mechanically  to  the  '  Poet's 
Corner.'  '  His  heart  stood  still  a  moment  when  he  saw  his  own 
verses.  Such  delight  as  his  comes  only  once  in  a  lifetime  of 
any  aspirant  to  literary  fame.  His  father  at  last  called  to  him 
to  put  up  the  paper,  and  keep  at  work..  But  he  could  not  resist 
the  temptation  to  take  it  again  and  again  from  his  pocket  to 
stare  at  his  lines  in  print.  He  has  said  he  was  sure  that 
he  did  not  read  a  word  of  the  poem  all  the  time  he  looked 
at  it/ 

"  This  poem  was  entitled  l  The  Exile's  Departure,'  and  was 
written  just  a  year  before  its  publication,  or  in  June,  1825. 

"The  following  week  another  poem  from  the  lot,  written 
the  previous  year,  was  ventured.  This  was  '  The  Deity/  an 


IX    WIIITTIER'S   COUNTRY.  51 

amplification  of  the  passage  from  Scripture  in  the  nineteenth 
chapter  of  1st  Kings,  eleventh  and  twelfth  verses,  wherein  the 
prophet  relates  the  appearance  of  the  Lord.  It  also  was 
promptly  published,  and,  furthermore,  was  distinguished  with 
an  introductory  note  by  the  editor,  who  had  meantime  ascer- 
tained from  the  postman  whence  these  poems  came.  This  note 
remarked  the  youth  of  the  author,  and  commended  his  poetry, 
as  bearing  the  stamp  of  'true  poetic  genius,  which,  if  carefiilly 
cultivated,  the  editor  added  prophetically,  would  '  rank  him 
among  the  bards  of  his  country/ 

"  Then  following  close  upon  this  flattering  publication,  the 
family  at  the  farm  were  surprised  by  a  call  from  young  Garri- 
son, who  had  driven  over  from  Newburyport  to  make  the  ac- 
quaintance of  his  promising  contributor.  Whittierwas  at  work 
in  a  field,  barefooted,  and  clad  only  in  shirt,  trousers,  and 
rough  straw  hat,  — for  the  day  was  warm, —  when  he  was  sum- 
moned to  the  house  by  the  astonishing  message  that  a  stranger 
had  come  in  a  carriage  to  see  him.  Slipping  in  by  the  back 
door,  the  shy  youth  learned  who  his  caller  was,  and  strove  to 
be  excused.  But  Mary  persuaded  him  to  '  tidy  up '  and  receive 
his  visitor.  Thus  first  met  these  two  remarkable  men  who 
were  destined  to  work  together  for  years  —  not  always  in  har- 
mony as  to  methods,  but  always  in  friendship,  —  for  an  unpopu- 
lar cause,  the  triumph  of  which  both  lived  to  celebrate  with 
thanksgiving." 

"  So  it  was  Garrison  who  discovered  Whittier.  That  is  in- 
teresting. Their  meeting  in  this  old  homestead  would  make 
a  fine  subject  for  an  historical  painting,  I  should  say,"  Percy 
ventured. 

"  So  it  would.  Garrison  was  only  two  years  older  than 
Whittier ;  but  his  position  as  an  editor,  and  his  larger  knowl- 
edge of  the  world,  gave  him  far  greater  weight  than  his  years 
to  the  country  youth.  Accordingly  his  evidently  sincere  praise 
of  the  poet's  work,  and  expression  of  belief  in  his  capacity  for 
greater  achievement,  must  have  been  inspiring.  His  earnest 


52 


LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 


advice  that  the  youth  should  develop  his  talents  by  broad  edu- 
cation must  have  struck  a  responsive  chord.  But  the  father, 
when  appealed  to  and  urged  to  give  his  son  a  better  training 
than  the  district  school  afforded,  told  Garrison  that  (  he  did  not 
wish  him  to  put  such  notions  in  the  boy's  head.'  It  wasn't 
that  the  good  man  discouraged  his  boy's  literary  tendencies,  as 
some  have  held ;  it  was  only  that  money  was  very  scarce  on 

New  England  farms  in  those 
days.  We  have  Whittier's 
own  testimony  on  this  point : 
<My  father  did  not  oppose 
me;  he  was  proud  of  my 
pieces,  but  as  he  was  in 
straitened  circumstances,  la.6 
could  do  nothing  to  aid  me. 
He  was  a  man  in  advance  of 
his  times,  remarkable  for  the 
soundness  of  his  judgment, 
and  freedom  from  popular 
errors  of  thinking.'  The  op- 
portunity for  higher  school- 
ing came,  however,  the  next 
year,  when  Whittier  himself 
met  the  expense,  as  we  have 
seen  ;  and  the  broader  educa- 
tion was  acquired  through 
his  studies  in  a  wide  field  pursued  without  a  master. 

«  After  the  first  publications  in  Garrison's  paper,  the  young 
author's  poems  appeared  with  growing  frequency.  In  one  year, 
that  of  his  first  term  at  the  academy,  more  than  forty  were 
published  in  the  Haverhill  Gazette  ;  the  next  year  nearly  fifty. 
They  were  also  seen  in  other  papers,  notably  the  National 
Philanthropist  of  Boston,  which  Garrison  was  then  editing. 
Prose  sketches,  too,  and  political  articles  began  to  appear  from 
his  pen. 


JOHN    G.    WHITTIER    AT   THIRTY. 


IN    WIHTTIER'S   COUNTRY.  53 

"  Soon  after  his  graduation  from  the  academy,  he  left  the 
farm,  and  made  his  first  venture  as  an  editor,  going  up  to 
Boston  to  edit  the  American  Manufacturer,  a  weekly  political 
journal  devoted  to  Henry  Clay.  There  he  wrote  spirited  arti- 
cles in  advocacy  of  a  protective  tariff,  and  on  other  political 
questions  of  the  time ;  occasional  sketches,  and  a  poem  for 
almost  every  issue.  This  editorship  continued  for  about  a 
year ;  and  he  received  a  salary  of  nine  dollars  a  week,  half  of 
which  he  saved,  and  applied  to  the  reduction  of  the  mortgage 
on  the  homestead.  The  failing  health  of  his  father  called  him 
home,  for  he  was  needed  to  take  care  of  the  farm.  While 
conducting  it,  he  edited  the  Haverhill  Gazette  for  several 
months,  doing  his  editorial  work  at  home. 

"  Meanwhile  he  continued  his  studies,  and  also  contributed 
political  essays  and  poems  to  the  New  England  Review  of 
Hartford,  at  that  time  the  leading  Whig  journal  of  Connecti- 
cut. This  brought  him  into  friendly  relations  with  the  brilliant 
George  D.  Prentice,  then  its  editor,  who  afterward  founded  the 
Louisville  Journal,  now  the  Courier-Journal  of  Louisville,  Ken- 
tucky. Subsequently,  upon  Mr.  Prentice's  removal  to  Ken- 
tucky, Whittier  was  called  to  the  editorship  of  the  Review,  and 
he  thereupon  established  himself  in  Hartford.  For  this  work 
his  salary  was  ten  dollars  a  week ;  and  part  of  these  earnings 
he  used  to  clear  the  little  mortgage  from  the  home  farm.  For 
his  published  poems  he  had  thus  far  received  no  compensation, 
nor  did  he  earn  anything  from  these  productions  for  some  years 
to  come ;  for  poetry  in  those  days  was  not  a  marketable  com- 
modity. To  the  Review,  during  his  editorship,  he  contributed 
numerous  poems,  besides  political  leaders,  legends,  and  tales. 

"  While  he  was  in  Hartford,  his  first  book  appeared,  '  Le- 
gends of  New  England  in  Prose  and  Verse/  That  was  in  1831, 
when  more  than  one  hundred  poems  from  his  pen  had  been 
published  in  periodicals.  It  is  a  notable  fact  that  of  these, 
only  twenty  were  deemed  by  him  worthy  of  reproduction 
1  between  covers  ; '  and  that  moreover,  in  later  years  every  copy 


54  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

of  this  first  book  which  he  could  obtain,  he  destroyed,  some- 
times paying  a  high  premium  for  possession.  Such  Avas  the 
severity  of  his  estimate  upon  this  earlier,  or  developing,  work, 
which  yet  had  won  for  him  a  recognized  place  among  his  liter- 
ary contemporaries. 

"  He  retained  his  Hartford  editorship  for  about  a  year  and 
a  half ;  and  during  the  last  nine  months  edited  the  paper  at 
long  range  from  the  farm  to  which  he  was  obliged  to  return. 
He  was  then  compelled  to  resign  his  position  on  account  of  the 
delicate  state  of  his  health,  which  all  through  his  long  life  was 
a  check  upon  his  efforts.  Still  he  continued  to  accomplish  a 
vast  amount  of  varied  work.  While  managing  the  farm,  writing 
sketches,  and  composing  poems  at  his  great-grandfather's  desk 
in  the  kitchen  corner,  he  took  a  directing  hand  in  politics.  He 
helped  Caleb  Gushing  to  his  election  to  Congress ;  concerned 
himself  in  state  affairs,  and  in  the  advancement  of  national 
issues,  and  he  was  becoming  active  as  an  anti-slavery  leader. 

"Then  he  came  to  the  cross-roads  where  he  must  decide 
between  that  which  led  to  political  preferment,  and  that  which 
led  away  from  his  cherished  ambitions.  For  though  we  are 
mostly  accustomed  to  think  of  Whittier  as  the  retiring  man  of 
letters,  the  bard  of  New  England,  his  chief  desire  at  this  period 
of  his  life  was  to  become  a  prominent  politician.  In  a  letter 
to  Mrs.  Lydia  H.  Sigourney,  the  poet,  then  at  Hartford,  in 
1832,  he  wrote :  '*  I  love  poetry  with  a  love  as  warm,  as  fervent, 
as  .sincere  as  any  of  the  more  gifted  worshipers  at  the  temple 
of  the  Muses.  .  .  .  But  I  feel  and  know  that 

*  To  other  chords  than  mine  belong 
The  breathing  of  immortal  song,' 

and  in  consequence,  I  have  been  compelled  to  trust  to  other 
and  less  pleasant  pursuits  for  distinction  and  profit.     Politics 
is  the  only  field  now  open    for  me ;    and  there    is    something 
inconsistent  in  the  character  of  a  poet  and  modern  politician.' 
"•Before   taking   the   step  which    carried   him   irrevocably 


IN   WHITTIER' S  COUNTRY.  55 

into  the  anti-slavery  struggle,  he  counted  the  cost,  as  his  biog- 
rapher says,  with  Quaker  coolness  of  judgment.  Having  once 
decided,  he  threw  himself  with  ardor  into  it,  and  never  faltered 
to  the  end.  Before  the  removal  from  this  homestead,  he  had 
written  and  published  his  *  Justice  and  Expediency,'  as  we  have 
seen  ;  had  signed  the  Anti-Slavery  '  Declaration  of  Sentiments ' 
adopted  by  the  Philadelphia  Convention  of  1833,  of  which  he 
was  a  foremost  member  ;  had  published  in  Garrison's  Liberator, 
the  famous  Lines,  '  Expostulation ; '  and  had  been  mobbed  when 
speaking  on  public  platforms  with  George  Thompson,  the  Eng- 
lish agitator.  He  had  also  served  a  term  in  the  Massachusetts 
Legislature,  and  had  been  proposed  for  Congress." 

We  were  now  out  of  doors  again,  and  were  loitering  over 
the  neighboring  fields,  while  Percy,  as  our  talk  went  on, 
absorbed  the  yet  pastoral  scenes  about  us.  A  little  way  up  the 
old  road  by  the  homestead  side,  we  came  upon  the  venerable 
"  Whittier  Elm."  In  its  neighborhood  stood 

.  .  .  "the  schoolhouse  by  the  road 
A  ragged  beggar  sleeping," 

scene  of  the  dainty  gem  "  In  School  Days." 

Then  retracing  our  steps,  we  took  a  look  once  more  at  the 
old  part  of  the  "  new  barn  "  which  the  boys  on  that  December 
day  of  "  Snow  Bound  "  "  reached  with  merry  din," 

"And  roused  the  prisoned  brutes  within:" 
when  — 

"The  old  horse  thrust  his  long  head  out, 
And  grave  with  wonder  gazed  about; 
The  cock  his  lusty  greeting  said, 
And  forth  his  speckled  harem  led  ; 
The  oxen  lashed  their  tails,  and  hooked, 
And  mild  reproach  of  hunger  looked  ; 
The  horned  patriarch  of  the  sheep, 
Like  Egypt's  Arnun  roused  from  sleep. 
Shook  his  sage  head  with  gesture  mute, 
And  emphasized  with  stamp  of  foot : " — 

Back  on  the  main  road,  we  took  a  trolley-car  for  the  other 
Whittier  shrine,  in  Amesbury,  eight  miles  away. 


V. 

AT  WHITTIER'S  AMESBURY   HOME. 

The  "Garden  Room."  —  Work  in  verse  and  prose  done  here.  —  Later 
editorial  labors. — The  Atlantic  poems. — The  poet's  lirst  published 
volume.  —  Productions  of  his  riper  years.  — The  Old  Quaker  Meeting- 
house.—  The  poet's  pew,  where  "Laus  Deo"  was  thought  out  at  a 
"Fifth  Day  "  meeting.  — The  poet's  grave  on  the  hilltop  overlooking 
familiar  scenes  of  his  verse. 

HAPPILY  the  Whittier  house  in  Amesbury  is  preserved  with 
the  same  pious  care  as  the  poet's  birthplace,  and  Percy  was 
privileged  to  see  it  quite  as  the  poet  left  it;  for  the  poet's 
niece,  Mrs.  Pickard,  established  it  as  a  memorial  of  his  life  of 
more  than  half  a  century  here.  The  house  grew,  Percy  learned, 
as  Whittier  slowly  prospered,  expanding  from  the  original  little 
cottage  of  a  few  small  rooms  to  its  present  pleasant  propor- 
tions. For  the  first  eighteen  years  of  his  occupancy  of  it  no 
change  was  made.  Then,  as  Mr.  Pickard  states,  the  eastern 
end  was  raised  to  two  stories,  and  an  addition  of  the  same 
height  was  built  at  the  southeast  corner.  Thirty  years  later 
the  western  end  was  raised  a  second  story.  The  little  parlor 
at  the  northwest  corner,  with  its  genial  open  fireplace  and  the 
portraits  of  the  poet's  mother  and  sister  Elizabeth  on  the  walls, 
is  the  original  parlor  of  the  cottage. 

When  the  addition  at  the  southeastern  corner  was  made, 
the  lower  room  was  fitted  up  as  a  study.  This  is  "  the  garden 
room,"  so  frequently  and  lovingly  described.  In  this  family 
sitting-room  Whittier  did  his  work  among  the  home  circle ;  for 
he  "  loved  domesticity,  and  could  read  and  write  without  dis- 
turbance in  the  midst  of  household  affairs."  Here  also  he 
received  his  friends.  From  the  first  the  bookshelves  occupied 

56 


AT   WHITTIER'S  AMESBURY  HOME.  57 

the  recess  on  one  side  of  the  chimney,  before  which  was  the 
Franklin  stove  that  warmed  the  room  in  winter;  and  in  the 
recess  on  the  other  side  was  the  poet's  desk.  The  north  win- 
dow next  the  desk  fits  in  a  door  communicating  with  the  little 
veranda,  or  porch,  on  the  garden  side,  and  gives  a  view  of  the 
street,  with  the  slope  of  Po  Hill  overlooking  the  house,  as 


A    BIT   OF    THE    PARLOR    IN    WHITTIER'S    AMESBURY    HOME. 
(Mrs.  Whittier's  picture  over  mantel.) 

Job's  Hill  overlooks  the  Haverhill  homestead.  The  room 
above  the  garden  room  was  the  sister  Elizabeth's  chamber  until 
her  death  in  1864,  and  thereafter  Whittier's.  The  garden  was 
rich  in  flowers  and  fruits,  especially  pears  and  apples,  and 
vegetables  were  grown  in  a  secluded  part  in  the  poet's  time. 
This  house  and  the  garden  room,  identified  with  the  ripened 
fame  of  Whittier,  awakened  in  my  impressionable  friend  the 
liveliest  emotions.  Here,  he  was  reminded,  were  written  most 


58.  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

of  the  anti-slavery  poems,  those  "  bursts  of  passionate  verse " 
which  came  at  white  heat  from  the  poet's  pen  as  the  struggle 
went  on ;  the  best  of  his  prose  works,  —  "  Old  Portraits,"  "  Lit- 
erary Recreations,"  and  that  unique  sketch,  or  historical  novel, 
"  Leaves  from  Margaret  Smith's  Journal " ;  his  noble  poems, 
"  In  War  Time  "  ;  his  religious  poems  and  hymns  j  the  sweet 
lyrics  of  his  mature  years ;  the  legendary  poems  ;  and  the  idyls 


WHITTIER    HOMESTEAD.  AMESBURY. 

which  so  endeared  him  to  the  people.  True,  the  anti-slavery 
work  in  which  he  was  actively  engaged  during  the  first  twenty 
or  twenty-five  years  of  the  family  life  here,  and  his  editorial 
labors  in  connection  with  various  journals,  took  him  at  inter- 
vals out  into  the  world,  but  ill  health  or  the  ties  of  home  re- 
peatedly drew  him  back  to  the  serene  homestead  ;  so  that  this 
was  throughout  his  most  constant  working  place. 

Sitting  in  the  garden  room,  where  Percy  occupied  the  seat 
of  honor  by  the  poet's  desk,  we  took  up  the  thread  dropped  at 


AT   WHITTIER^  S  AMESBURY  HOME.  59 

the  farm,  and  traced  further  the  development  of  Whittier's 
genius. 

"  His  purely  literary  work  was  practically  suspended  through 
the  most  of  the  anti-slavery  contest,  was  it  not  ?  "  Percy  asked. 

"  Not  at  all.  Though  his  anti-slavery  writings  dominated, 
some  of  his  most  popular  literary  productions  were  of  that 
period.  In  the  journals  which  he  edited,  or  to  which  he  con- 
tributed, during  that  time,  he  published  not  a  little  of  what 
has  been  called  his  foundation  work,  —  that  is,  the  work  which 
laid  the  basis  of  his  fame.  Between  the  years  1837  and  1847 
he  contributed  to  the  Democratic  Journal,  a  partisan  paper 
antagonistic  to  the  abolition  cause,  published  at  Washington, 
an  important  series  of  poems  which  did  not  treat  of  slavery. 
These  were,  (  Pentucket/  '  The  Familist's  Hymn,'  '  Cassandra 
Southwick,'  <  Hampton  Beach/  <  The  New  Wife  and  the  Old,' 
*  The  Bridal  of  Pennacook,'  and  '  The  Norseman's  Bide.'  At 
the  same  time  he  contributed  various  prose  sketches. 

"  A  still  more  important  series  appeared  in  the  National 
Era,  also  of  Washington,  of  which  he  was  corresponding  editor, 
so  called,  for  thirteen  years  from  1847,  doing  his  editorial  work 
in  Amesbury.  This  list  included  '  Randolph  of  Roanoke,' 
<  Barclay  of  Ury,'  '  The  Drovers,'  'The  Huskers,'  'Calef  in 
Boston/  <  The  Hill  Top/  <  Tauler/  <  Burns/  <  Maud  Miiller/  <  A 
Lady  of  Old  Time/  'The  Last  Walk  in  Autumn/  and  'The 
Pipes  of  Lucknow ' ;  together  with  his  prose  sketches,  '  Old 
Portraits/  several  of  the  papers  in  his  '  Literary  Recreations/ 
and  l  Margaret  Smith's  Journal.'  The  Era  was  the  anti-slavery 
organ  edited  by  the  intrepid  Gamaliel  Bailey,  in  which  first 
appeared  '  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin/  you  will  recall.  Hawthorne's 
'  The  Great  Stone  Face '  was  also  first  published  in  this  jour- 
nal, after  the  manuscript  had  been  submitted  to  Whittier. 
Other  frequent  contributors  were  Grace  Greenwood,  Alice  and 
Phoebe  Cary,  and  Lucy  Larcom. 

"  In  1838  and  1839  Whittier  edited  the  aggressive  Penn- 
sylvania Freemen  of  Philadelphia,  and  he  was  in  the  Quaket 


60  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

City  when  in  May,  1838,  the  first  Pennsylvania  Hall,  erected 

as  a  forum  for  free  discussion,  was  burned  by  a  mob.     At  the 

same  time  the  office  of  that  paper  was  sacked. 

"  It   was,    however,    in   the  Atlantic   Monthly,    started    in 

November,  1857,  with  James  Russell    Lowell  as   editor,  that 

Whittier's  choicest  work 
first  appeared.  The  bril- 
liant initial  number  con- 
tained his  legendary 
poem,  <  The  Gift  of  Tri- 
temius.'  Next  appeared' 
'  Skipper  Ireson's  Ride/ 
begun,  by  the  way, 
nearly  thirty  years  be- 
fore under  'Hugh  Tal- 
lant's  Sycamores,'  in 
Haverhill,  its  origin  be- 
ing a  story  told  him  by 
a  schoolmate  at  the 
academy.  Others  fol- 
lowed in  fairly  rapid 
succession  during  the 

WHITT,ER    IN    LATE    L.FE.  ^  few    yQ^    ^^ 

ing  his  war  poems,  <In  War  Time/  and  <  Barbara  Frietchie.' 
The  Atlantic  publications,  too,  were  the  most  remunerative. 

"But  the  poet's  material  prosperity  grew  very  slowly. 
Between  1831,  when  his  first  volume  appeared,  and  1857  —  his 
fiftieth  year  —  when  the  first  complete  edition  of  his  poems 
was  published  by  Ticknor  and  Fields,  his  returns  were  very 
modest,  although  several  volumes  of  verse  and  prose  had  been 
issued  during  that  period.  When,  at  the  opening  of  1864,  he 
received  the  royalties  on  his  volume,  '  In  War  Time/  he  wrote 
to  Fields :  '  Thy  favor  with  three  hundred  and  forty  dollars 
received.  It  makes  me  as  rich  as  Croesus.'  The  first  sub- 
stantial returns  came  from  <  Snow  Bound/  brought  out  in  1865. 


AT    WHITTIER'S   AMESBURY  HOME. 


61 


His  first  profits  on  this  idyl  were  ten  thousand  dollars,  a  great 
surprise.  It  was  a  competence  for  him.  Thereafter  a  good 
income  was  assured,  and  the  latter  quarter  century  of  his  life 
were  days  of  comfort  and  tranquillity  so  far  as  financial  matters 
were  concerned.'7 

A  visit  to  the  grave  of  the  poet  was  to  conclude  this  day's 
pilgrimage.  But  first  we  strolled  farther  down  Friend  Street 
to  see  the  Friends'  meetinghouse  where  the  Whittiers  wor- 
shiped. We  found  it  at  a  junction  of  roads,  a  short  walk 
from  the  homestead :  a  severely  plain  structure,  resembling  an 
old-time  country  schoolhouse  enlarged.  The  only  ornamenta- 
tion about  the  grounds  was  a  row  of  beautiful  roadside  trees. 

"  One  of  the  reasons  for  the  removal  of  the  Whittiers  from 
the  farm  to  this  village  was  their  desire  to  be  nearer  the  meet- 
inghouse. This  is  not,  however,  the  house  which  they  first 
attended,"  I  replied  to  Percy's  questions.  "  That  stood  nearly 


FRIENDS'    MEETINGHOUSE. 
(Whittier's   pew  was  the  second  from  the  front  on  the  right.) 

opposite  the  cottage,  on  the  spot  where  its  predecessors  had 
stood  from  the  first  setting  up  of  a  Quaker  meetinghouse  in 
Amesbury,  in  the  seventeenth  century.  But  the  present  struc- 
ture is  to  us  especially  interesting  as  the  house  built  under 


62  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

Whittier's  direction  half  a  century  ago.  When  the  details  of 
its  construction  were  left  to  him,  his  biographer  relates,  there 
was  some  fear  among  the  conservatives  that,  since  he  had  at 
that  time  mixed  with  the  world's  people  more  than  with  his 
brethren,  he  would  provide  too  many  modern  comforts  in  it, — 
perhaps  even  give  it  a  steeple.  But,  to  offset  this  feeling,  he 
shrewdly  employed  as  builders  three  unquestioned  Quaker  car- 
penters, one  of  them  a  Quaker  minister,  and  the  other  two, 
elders  of  the  society,  with  the  result,  as  we  see, —  a  thoroughly 
Orthodox  Quaker  meetinghouse,  within  and  without." 

Percy  was  shown  the  sober  interior,  and  sat  in  Whittier's 
pew.  We  recalled  that  it  was  here,  during  the  silent  worship 
of  the  regular  "Fifth  Day"  meeting  on  the  last  day  of  Jan- 
uary, 1865,  as  the  village  bells  and  the  cannon  were  proclaim- 
ing the  passage  of  the  Constitutional  amendment  abolishing 
slavery,  that  Whittier  thought  out  his  "  Laus  Deo,"  begin- 
ning— 

"It  is  done! 

Clang  of  bell  and  roar  of  gun, 
Send  the  tidings  up  and  down. 
How  the  belfries  rock  and  reel ! 
How  the  great  guns  peal  on  peal, 
Fling  the  joy  from  town  to  town. 

Ring,  O  bells! 

Every  stroke  exulting  tells 
Of  the  burial  hour  of  crime. 

Loud  and  long,  that  all  may  hear, 

Ring  for  every  listening  ear 
Of  Eternity  and  Time  ! " 

And  upon  returning  home  he  recited  to  the  household,  in  the 
garden  room,  a  portion  of  the  poem  not  then  committed  to 
paper.  Later  he  said  in  a  note  to  Lucy  Larcom,  "  It  wrote 
itself,  or  rather  sang  itself,  while  the  bells  rang." 

It  was  a  longer  walk  to  the  hillside  burying-ground,  where 
are  the  graves  of  the  Whittiers,  in  a  more  rural  part  of  the 
village.  Following  the  directions  of  a  village  blacksmith, 


AT  WHITTIER' S  AME8BUEY  1IOMK. 


63 


whose  little  gray  shop  stood  at  the  foot  of  the  hill,  we  caine 
to  this  "  God's  acre,"  on  a  side  road,  just  off  the  highway  to 
Newburyport.  On  the  way  up  the  foot-path  to  the  hilltop,  we 
passed  a  boulder  marked,  "  The  first  meeting  house  in  Ames- 
bury  erected  on  this  spot  in  1665." 

The  Whittier  lot  was  easily  recognized  from  the  description 
given  us :  a  long  lot  surrounded  by  a  thick  hedge  of  arbor 
vitse.  An  opening  at  one  side  gave  admittance  to  the  grassy 
enclosure.  We  stood  before  a  line  of  plain,  low  marble  head- 
stones. The  first,  larger  than  the  rest,  marked  the  poet's 


AMESBURY    FROM    POWOW    HILL,    THE   VIEW    IN    "MIRIAM." 

grave ;  the  others,  the  members  of  the  family  group  portrayed 
in  "  Snow  Bound."  "  It  was  Whittier's  request  in  his  will,"  I 
recalled,  as  Percy's  eye  glanced  down  the  line,  "  that  his  grave- 
stone should  be  of  the  same  size  as  the  others ;  but  it  was 
decided,  notwithstanding,  most  fitting  to  distinguish  his  grave 
by  the  slightly  loftier  mark." 

Percy  copied  the  simple  inscriptions.     The  first  bore  on  its 
face  only  this : 

John  Greenleaf  Whittier 
1807-1892 


64  LITERACY  PILGRIMAGES. 

and  on  the  reverse, 

"  Here  Whittier  lies." 

Oliver  Wendell  Holmes. 

—  a  phrase  from  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes' s  tribute  to  Whittier 
after  his  death,  being  the  last  words  of  the  last  verse : 

"  Lift  from  its  quarried  ledge  a  flawless  stone ; 

Smooth  the  green  turf  and  bid  the  tablet  rise, 
And  on  its  snow-white  surface  carve  alone 

These  words,  —  he  needs  no  more,  —  Here  Whittier  lies." 

Two  tall  cedars,  Percy  noted,  break  the  hedge  line  :  one  at 
the  foot  of  Whittier's  grave,  the  other  at  the  corner  of  the 
brother  Matthew's  grave. 

The  June  sun  was  dropping  as  we  stood  on  the  little  emi- 
nence and  gazed  upon  the  landscape  .below  and  about  us,  the 
valley  of  the  Powow  River,  with  Amesbury  town,  the  winding 
Merrimac,  the  distant  hills  of  Newbury,  all  familiar  scenes  of 
Whittier's  verse.  Then  we  returned  to  the  main  road  and  took 
the  trolley  car  for  New  bury  port,  where  we  were  to  spend  the 
night. 


VI. 

ROUND  ABOUT   NEWBURYPORT. 

Whittier's  picture  of  "the  old  and  quiet  town."  —  By  the  "Swinging 
chain-bridge." — Deer  Island. — Harriet  Prescott  Spofford  and  her 
work.  —  Scene  of  "The  Tent  on  the  Beach." — Workplace  of  a  gal- 
axy of  writers  :  Richard  Hildreth,  Theophilus  Parsons,  Cornelius  C. 
Felton,  Lucy  Hooper,  Caleb  Gushing,  George  Lunt,  John  Pierpont, 
James  Parton,  T.  W.  Higginson.  —  Whittier's  schoolmaster. — The 
old  "  Church  of  Federal  street "  and  Whitefield'stomb.  — The  Parson- 
age where  the  "  Marvellous  Preacher  "  died.  —  Birthplace  of  William 
Lloyd  Garrison.  —  His  work  in  Newburyport  and  afterward. — The 
Lowell  family.  —  Home  of  Hannah  Flagg  Gould.  —  The  Longfellow 
homestead  in  old  Newbury. 

WE  wished  that  we  might  have  had  our  first  sight  of  New- 
buryport as  Whittier  and  Lucy  Larcom  saw  it,  at  sunset,  look- 
ing down  from  the  summit  of  Whittier  Hill : 

.     "Its  windows  flashing  to  the  sky, 
Beneath  a  thousand  roofs  of  brown, 
Far  down  the  vale,  my  friend  and  I 
Beheld  the  old  and  quiet  town  ; 
The  ghostly  sails  that  out  at  sea 
Flapped  their  white  wings  of  mystery  ; 
The  beaches  glimmering  in  the  sun, 
And  the  low  wooded  capes  that  run 
Into  the  sea-mist  north  and  south  ; 
The  sand-bluffs  at  the  river's  mouth ; 
The  swinging  chain-bridge,  and,  afar, 
The  foam-line  of  the  harbor  bar." 

Still,  our  approach  was  a  pleasant  one,  with  glimpses  and 
broadening  views  of  the  Merrimac ;  and  it  took  us  across  the 
little  river  island  by  the  "  swinging  chain-bridge, "  where 
Harriet  Prescott  Spofford  (born  1835 — )  has  her  home: 

65 


66  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

u set  like  an  eagle's  nest 

Among  Deer  Isiaod's  immemorial  pines, 
Crowning  the  crag  on  which  the  sunset  breaks 
Its  last  red  arrow " 

This  was  the  romantic  feature  of  the  trip,  and  although  it  was 
now  early  evening  we  could  not  resist  the  temptation  to  stop 
and  explore  the  lovely  spot  by  the  light  of  a  young  moon.  So 
we  left  the  car,  and  spent  the  half  hour  before  another  one 
was  due,  about  the  place  where  "  Deer  Island's  mistress  sings.'7 
Its  great  trees  near  by  the  traveled  road,  — "  old  pine  forest 


CHAIN-BRIDGE    BY    DEER    ISLAND. 

kings,"  Whittier  called  them,  —  shelter,  they  say,  hawks  and 
crows,  kingfishers  and  herons.  The  low,  spreading,  roomy 
house  set  in  a  thick-grown  orchard  and  garden  of  fruit  trees, 
old  fashioned  flowers,  shrubs,  and  vines ;  bushes  of  lilac  and 
sumac,  and  wild  flowers  growing  out  from  the  crevices  of  the 
rugged  rocks  on  the  water's  edge :  all  this,  with  the  secluded 
walks  and  the  river  summer-house  made  it  an  ideal  home  for 
a  poet  and  story-teller,  so  Percy  thought.  And  the  charm 
seemed  complete  when  within  the  house  Percy  saw  the  ram- 
bling rooms  opening  from  cheerful  halls  and  entries,  the 


UNIVERSITY 

OF 


ABOUT  NEWBURYPORT. 


(37 


comfortable  furnishings,  the  well-stocked  library,  the  literary 
work-room,  and  the  windows  looking  out  upon  the  river. 

Our  half  hour  up,  the  car  appeared,  and  we  resumed  our 
journey  to  the  end  of  the  route  in  the  center  of  the  town  (or 
city,  we  should  say),  two  miles  distant. 

As  we  left  the  "  enchanted  island  "  (this  was  Percy's  blithe 
term  for  it),  our  talk  turned  naturally  upon  Mrs.  Spofford's 


HOME    OF    HARRIET    PRESCOTT    SPOFFORD,    DEER   ISLAND. 

career  and  work.  She  had  not  always  lived  on  the  island,  as 
Percy  fancied. 

"Nor  was  her  fame  altogether  associated  with  it,"  I  ex- 
plained. "  On  the  contrary,  her  place  in  literature  was  firmly 
fixed  before  this  became  her  home.  But  Newburyport  is  iden- 
tified with  all  her  literary  work." 

"  It  was  her  birthplace  ?  " 

"No.  She  is  of  Maine  birth,  born  in  the  picturesque  little 
town  of  Calais,  on  the  St.  Croix  River,  close  to  the  Canadian 
line.  She  is  a  kinswoman  of  Sir  William  Pepperell — his  great- 


68 


LI  TERAB  Y  PIL  GRIM  A  GES. 


grandniece  —  and  of  New  England  stock  on  both  sides.  Her 
father  was  first  a  lumber  merchant,  then  a  lawyer ;  and  when, 
in  1849,  the  California  gold  fever  broke  out,  he  went  to  the 
Pacific  coast.  There  he  became  one  of  the  founders  of  Oregon 
City,  and  served  as  mayor  before  returning  east.  Lingering 
paralysis  came  upon  him  afterward,  and  he  lived  a  painful 
life  for  twenty  years  longer.  Her  mother  was  a  woman  of 
fine  mind.  She  attained  a  ripe  old  age,  and  died  in  this  Deer 
Island  home. 

"  Harriet  Prescott  came  to  Newburyport  when  a  girl  of 
fourteen,  to  an  aunt's  home.  She  disclosed  her  literary  bent 
as  a  Newburyport  grammar  school  girl,  by  winning  a  prize  for 

an  essay  on  *  Hamlet.'     This 
attracted    the    attention    of 
Thomas  Wentworth  Higgin- 
son,    then    minister    of    the 
Newburyport      Unitarian 
Church ;  and  he  became  her 
literary    guide,    encouraging 
her  in  the  cultivation  of  her 
talent.      She  also  wrote  sev- 
eral little  plays  for  her  mates 
to  perform  at  the  school  ex- 
hibitions.     Having   finished 
her   schooling   at   Pinkerton 
Academy    in     Derry,     New 
Hampshire,  she  set  diligently 
to  work  at  story -writ  ing,  to 
HARRIET  PRESCOTT  SPOFFORD.          help  support  the  family. 
«  Her  first  story  was  published  when  she  was  eighteen,  in 
one  of  the  <  family  story  papers '  of  the  time.     For  this  she 
received  five  dollars  and  a  request  for  more  stories.     During 
the  next  three  years  she  supplied  the  same  paper  with   one 
hundred  stories.     But  the  rate  paid  her  grew  smaller  as   the 
volume  of  her  work  increased,  although  she  was  growing  in 


ROUND  ABOUT  NEWBURYPORT.  69 

popularity.  So  she  resolved  to  try  a  higher  field.  She  sent 
a  story  to  the  Atlantic  Monthly,  then  in  its  promising  first 
years  under  the  editorship  of  James  Kussell  Lowell.  This  was 
the  tale  entitled  ( In  a  Cellar,'  the  scene  of  which  was  laid  in 
Paris.  Its  local  coloring  was  so  exact,  and  its  atmosphere  so 
unmistakably  French,  that  Mr.  Lowell  wrote  her  asking  if  it 
were  not  a  translation.  Assured  of  its  originality,  he  accepted 
it ;  and  in  due  time  she  was  cheered  by  a  cheque  for  one  hun- 
dred dollars,  accompanied  by  an  encouraging  note  urging  her 
to  pursue  the  vein  she  had  thus  auspiciously  opened.  That 
was  in  1859.  The  tale  was  widely  commended  for  its  imagin- 
ative strength,  skillful  characterization,  and  artistic  setting. 

<•'  Then  followed  a  succession  of  good  stories,  — l  Sir  Rohan's 
Ghost,'  <  The  Amber  Gods,'  <  Azarian,'  <  The  Thief  in  the  Night,' 
and  '  New  England  Legends,'  all  published  first  in  the  Atlantic 
during  Lowell's  and  Field's  editorship,  and  afterward  in  book 
form.  Thereafter,  for  a  while  her  writings  appeared  in  Harper's 
and  Scribner's  —  the  first  Scribner>8t  f-rom  which  developed  the 
Century  magazine.  These  included  t  The  Marquis  of  Carabas,' 
*  Hester  Stanley  at  St.  Mark's,'  and  some  of  her  poems. 

«  Her  first  book  published  was  <  Sir  Eohan's  Ghost,'  in  1860. 
Her  first  book  of  poems  came  more  than  twenty  years  after- 
ward, in  1882,  when  her  name  as  a  writer  of  lyrics  had  been 
established  through  magazine  publications.  Five  years  later 
her  <  In  Titian's  Garden,  and  Other  Poems '  was  issued  between 
dainty  covers.  Her  <  Priscilla's  Love  Story '  came  out  in  1898. 

"  Her  place  as  first  among  story  writers  of  her  class  was 
recognized  under  her  maiden  name  of  Harriet  Elizabeth  Pres- 
cott.  She  married  in  1865,  after  a  long  engagement,  Richard 
S.  Spofford,  a  Newburyport  lawyer,  himself  of  the  poetic  tem- 
perament. Upon  his  death  Whittier  wrote  — 

*  No  fonder  lover  of  all  lovely  things 

Shall  walk  where  once  he  walked,  no  smile  more  glad 
Greet  friends  than  his  who  friends  in  all  men  had 
Whose  pleasant  memory  to  that  Island  clings.' 


70  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

"  The  island  home  was  purchased  and  built  up  a  few  years 
after  their  marriage." 

We  began  our  explorations  of  the  next  day  in  the  cool  of 
early  morning,  with  a  trip  to  the  neighboring  Salisbury  Beach, 
the  scene  of  the  "  Tent  on  the  Beach  "  ;  for  in  this  region  we 
were  yet  in  Whittier's  country. 

The  poet  has  definitely  indicated  for  us  the  locality  of  this 
poem  :  a  slope  near  the  mouth  of  the  Hampton  River  which 
winds  through  the  salt  meadows  of  Hampton,  lying  at  about 
the  southern  extremity  of  the  long  line  of  sandy  beach  which 
defines  almost  the  whole  of  the  New  Hampshire  sea-coast. 
Northward  appears  Great  Boar's  Head,  and  southward  the 
Merrimac,  with  Newburyport,  "lifting  its  steeples  above  brown 
roofs  and  green  trees  "  on  its  banks.  The  mouth  of  the  Hamp- 
ton River  also  was  the  scene  of  the  "  Wreck  of  Rivermouth." 

Percy  was  aware,  having  familiarized  himself  with  the 
poem,  that  the  poet  fancies  himself  camped  out  here  with  two 
friends,  to  whom  he  reads  his  poems ;  their  comments  furnish 
the  slender  chain  along  which  the  verses  are  strung.  And  he 
had  read  that  the  friends  —  one  "  a  lettered  magnate  lord- 
ing an  ever-widening  realm  of  books,"  the  other,  a  "free 
cosmopolite,"  whose  "  Arab  face  was  tanned  by  tropic  sun  and 
boreal  frost,"  -  -  were  James  T.  Fields,  the  Boston  publisher, 
and  Bayard  Taylor,  the  traveled  litterateur.  Whittier  long 
outlived  these  two  friends,  I  remarked  by  the  way,  though  both 
were  younger  and  physically  stronger  than  he. 

I  recalled  the  opening  lines  of  the  introduction  to  the  poem, 
by  which  the  author  gracefully  recognized  his  fellow  poet's 
similarly  fashioned  "  Tales  of  a  Wayside  Inn,"  which  had 
appeared  four  years  earlier.  The  lines  run  thus : 

"I  would  not  sin,  in  this  half-playful  strain, — 

Too  light,  perhaps,  for  serious  years,  though  born 
Of  the  enforced  leisure  of  slow  pain, — 

Against  the  pure  ideal  which  has  drawn 
My  feet  to  follow  its  far-shining  gleam :  —  " 


ROUND  ABOUT  NEWBURYPORT.  71 

Like  Longfellow's  work,  too,  I  added,  this  included  poems 
previously  published  singly  at  intervals  in  the  magazines, 
mostly  in  the  Atlantic  •  but  the  new  setting  gave  them  new 
interest ;  and  the  work  was  as  marked  a  success  as  «  Snow 
Bound,"  twenty  thousand  copies  being  sold  in  less  than  a 
month. 

Back  in  Newburyport  we  rambled  about  the  "  breezy, 
bowery,"  town  the  forenoon  through,  and  after  the  old-fashioned 
mid-day  dinner,  drove  toward  the  older  Newbuiy,  covering  in 
all  such  a  variety  of  landmarks  of  early  and  later  literary 
workers  that  Percy's  interest  never  flagged.  It  struck  him  as  a 
most  happy  coincidence  that  within  the  region  of  the  ancestral 
home  of  Whittier  the  progenitors  of  Longfellow  and  of  Lowell 
should  have  planted  themselves.  And  he  heard  with  pleased 
surprise  of  the  galaxy  of  writers,  men  and  women  of  various 
epochs,  who  were  born  in  these  parts,  or  here  began  the  work 
which  gave  them  place  in  our  literature. 

He  found  that  Newburyport  was  the  earliest  working-place 
of  Richard  Hildreth  (born  in  Deerfield,  Mass.,  1807 ;  died  in 
Florence,  Italy,  1865),  whose  "  History  of  the  United  States/' 
he  said,  was  in  his  father's  library  at  home.  It  was  the  starting- 
point  of  Theophilus  Parsons  (born  in  Byfield,  Old  Newbury, 
1750 ;  died  1813),  chief  justice  of  Massachusetts  from  1806  till 
his  death,  who  was  called  the  "  giant  of  Greek  criticism  "  from 
his  intimate  knowledge  of  the  structure  of  the  Greek  language 
and  its  literature,  the  study  of  which  he  pursued  as  recreation 
from  his  legal  duties.  In  Judge  Parsons's  law  office,  as  stu- 
dents, were  John  Quincy  Adams  (born  in  Braintree,  now  Quincy, 
Mass.,  1767 ;  died  in  the  Capitol  at  Washington,  1848),  and 
Robert  Treat  Paine,  Jr.  (born  in  Taunton,  Mass.,  1773 ;  died 
in  Boston,  1811).  Mr.  Adams,  while  here,  wrote  the  town's^ 
address  to  Washington  upon  his  New  England  visit  in  1789 ; 
and  Robert  Treat  Paine,  Jr.,  author  of  the  famous  song  "  Adams 
and  Liberty,"  wrote  the  eulogy  on  Washington  for  the  town's 
memorial  service  in  1800. 


72  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

In  old  Newbury  originated  the  Sewall  family  of  American 
judges,  of  whom  not  the  least  distinguished  was  Samuel  Sewall 
(born  in  Bishopstoke,  Eng.,  1652 ;  died  in  Boston,  1730),  the 
"  witchcraft  judge,"  he  of  the  famous  Diary  —  the  Boston 
Pepys.  Old  Newbury,  too,  was  the  birthplace  of  Cornelius  C. 
Felton  (born  1807  ;  died  1862),  the  eminent  Greek  scholar,  and 
president  of  Harvard  College  from  1860  till  his  death. 

Newburyport  was  the  almost  life-long  home  of  Caleb  Gush- 
ing (born  in  Salisbury,  1800';  died  1879),  lawyer,  statesman,  and 
diplomat,  whose  "  Keminiscences  of  Spain,"  and  scholarly  con- 
tributions to  the  then  critical  North  American  Review,  gave 
him  a  literary  standing  distinct  from  his  political  fame.  Of 
Newburyport  birth  were  George  Lunt  (born  1803 ;  died  1885), 
poet  and  editor,  whose  novel  of  "  Eastford  "  and  the  lyrics,  son- 
nets, and  longer  poems  first  scattered  in  magazines,  then  issued 
in  half  a  dozen  small  volumes  at  intervals  between  the  thirties 
and  fifties,  ranked  him  with  his  best  contemporaries ;  Lucy 
Hooper  (born  1816  ;  died  1841),  Whittier's  friend,  who,  dying  at 
twenty -five,  had  won  a  fair  name  as  a  graceful  poet  and  prose- 
writer  ;  and  Joshua  Coffin  (born  1792 ;  died  1864),  schoolmaster, 
historian,  antiquary,  "  of  genial  and  kindly  spirit  and  subtle 
humor,"  as  Mrs.  Spofford  has  written.  Whittier  has  celebrated 
Joshua  Coffin  in  "  To  My  Schoolmaster  :  " 

"Old  friend,  kind  friend  !  lightly  down 
Drop  Time's  snow-flakes  on  thy  crown  I 

I  the  urchin  unto  whom 
In  that  smoked  and  dingy  room, 
Where  the  district  gave  thee  rule 
O'er  its  ragged  winter  school, 
Thou  didst  teach  the  mysteries 
Of  those  weary  A  B  C's 

Luring  us  by  stories  old, 
With  a  comic  unction  told, 
More  than  by  the  eloquence 
Of  terse  birchen  arguments 


HOUND  ABOUT  NEWBUBYPOBT.  73 

(Doubtful  gain,  I  fear),  to  look 
With  complacence  on  a  book  ! 
Where  the  genial  pedagogue 
Half  forgot  his  rogues  to  flog, 
Citing  tale  or  apologue, 
Wise  and  merry  in  its  drift 
As  was  Phaedrus'  twofold  gift, ' 
Had  the  little  rebels  known  it, 
Risum  et  prudentiam  monet!" 

Others  more  or  less  identified  with  the  old  town  were  the 
versatile  Hannah  Magg  Gould  (born  in  Lancaster,  Vt.,  1789 ; 
died  in  Newburyport,  1865),  who  did  her  life-work  here ;  and 
John  Pierpont  (born  in  Litchfield,  Conn.,  1785;  died  in  Medford, 
Mass.,  1866),  compiler  of  the  "  American  First  Class  Book," 
our  first  national  school  reader,  and  author  of  many  hymns, 
and  patriotic  and  political  verses,  who  wrote  his  earlier,  and 
some  of  his  best  poems  here.  Then  there  was  James  Parton 
(born  in  England,  1822;  died  in  Kewburyport,  1891),  who 
passed  his  later  years,  and  did  his  finer  biographical  work  here ; 
and  his  daughter,  Ethel  Parton,  inheriting  his  genius,  succeeded 
to  his  desk.  Thomas  Went  worth  Higginson  (born  in  Cam- 
bridge, Mass.,  1823),  while  minister  of  the  Unitarian  church 
from  1847  to  1850,  produced  here  some  of  the  first  fruits  of 
his  keen  and  graceful  pen.  And  William  Lloyd  Garrison  was 
born  here. 

After  the  first  manner  of  most  pilgrims  to  Newburyport, 
we  turned  toward  the  Old  South  meetinghouse,  where  — 

"  Under  the  church  of  Federal  Street, 
Under  the  tread  of  its  Sabbath  feet, 
Walled  about  by  its  basement  stones, 
Lie  the  marvelous  preacher's  bones. 
No  saintly  honors  to  them  are  shown, 
No  sign  nor  miracle  have  they  known  ; 
But  he  who  passes  the  ancient  church 
Stops  in  the  shade  of  its  belfry -porch, 
And  ponders  the  wonderful  life  of  him 
Who  lies  at  rest  in  that  charuel  dim," 


74  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

"  This  marvelous  preacher,"  I  related,  for  Percy  had  but  a 
vague  idea  of  him,  "  was  George  Whitefieid,  the  evangelist, 
son  of  an  English  inn-keeper,  born  in  the  Bell  Inn,  Gloucester, 
in  1714,  and  a  graduate  of  Oxford.  He  preached  in  England 
and  Scqtland  in  prisons,  churches,  and  the  open  fields,  to  great 
multitudes,  and  made  extraordinary  evangelizing  tours  in  our 
country  beginning  in  1738,  when  he  was  twenty-four  years  old. 


11 


HOME   OF   JAMES    PARTON. 
(From   "  Ould   Newbury,"    by  permission.) 

It  is  recorded,  as  you  will  see,  that  he  crossed  the  Atlantic  thir- 
teen times ;  and  in  a  ministry  of  thirty-eight  years  delivered 
thirteen  thousand  sermons.  He  died  here  in  Newburyport, 
suddenly,  in  September,  1770, —  from  asthma,  which  he  had 
contracted  in  speaking  constantly  in  the  open  air.  He  was 
buried  at  his  own  request  beneath  this  church. 


ROUND  ABOUT  NEWBURYPORT.  75 

"  As  to  his  remarkable  powers  and  persuasiveness  we  have 
the  testimony  of  our  own  Benjamin  Franklin,"  -  —  we  were  now 
in  "  the  shade  of  the  belfry -porch "  and  from  my  note-book  I 
read  these  quaint  extracts  from  the  philosopher's  autobiography : 

"He  had  a  loud  and  clear  voice,  and  articulated  his  words  and  sen- 
tences so  perfectly,  that  he  might  be  heard  and  understood  at  a  great  dis- 
tance, especially  as  his  auditors,  however  numerous,  observ'd  the  most 
exact  silence.  He  preach'd  one  evening  from  the  top  of  the  Court-house 
steps  [in  Philadelphia],  which  are  in  the  middle  of  the  Market-street, 
and  on  the  west  side  of  Second-street,  which  crosses  it  at  right  angles. 
Both  streets  were  fill'd  with  his  hearers  to  a  considerable  distance.  Being 
among  the  hindmost  in  Market-street,  I  had  the  curiosity  to  learn  how 
far  he  could  be  heard,  by  retiring  backwards  down  the  street  towards 
the  river ;  and  I  found  his  voice  distinct  till  I  came  near  Front-street, 
when  some  noise  in  that  street  obscur'd  it.  Imagining  then  a  semi-circle, 
of  which  my  distance  should  be  the  radius,  and  that  it  were  fill'd  with 
auditors,  to  each  of  whom  I  allow' d  two  square  feet,  I  computed  that  he 
might  well  be  heard  by  more  than  thirty  thousand.  This  reconcil'd  me 
to  the  newspaper  accounts  of  his  having  preach'd  to  twenty-five  thousand 
people  in  the  fields,  and  to  the  ancient  histories  of  generals  haranguing 
whole  armies,  of  which  I  had  sometimes  doubted. 

I  happened  ...  to  attend  one  of  his  sermons  in  the  course  of  which  I 
perceived  he  intended  to  finish  with  a  collection,  and  I  silently  resolved 
he  should  get  nothing  from  me.  I  had  in  my  pocket  a  handful  of  copper 
money,  three  or  four  silver  dollars,  and  five  pistoles  in  gold.  As  he  pro- 
ceeded I  began  to  soften,  and  concluded  to  give  the  coppers.  Another 
stroke  of  his  oratory  made  me  asham'd  of  that,  and  determined  me  to  give 
the  silver  ;  and  he  finish'd  so  admirably,  that  I  empty'd  my  pocket  wholly 
into  the  collector's  dish,  gold  and  all." 

"  Others  said  of  him  that  he  '  preached  like  a  lion.'  His 
voice  has  been  described  as  melodious  as  well  as  penetrative, 
his  countenance  most  expansive,  his  gestures  incessant  and 
graceful." 

The  old  church  was  courteously  opened  to  us,  and  its  treas- 
ures were  displayed  by  a  Newburyport  gentleman  to  whom  we 
had  been  referred  as  having  the  most  intimate  knowledge  of 
their  history  and  associations.  He  proved  the  kindliest  of 


76 


LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 


guides.  Percy  was  shown,  and  permitted  to  hold  in  his  hands, 
the  Bible  which  Whitefield  had  used.  He  stood  before  the  cen- 
otaph at  one  side  of  the  pulpit  erected  "  with  affectionate  ven- 
eration "  to  Whitefield's  memory,  and  copied  the  inscription  on 
its  face,  giving  the  facts  already  related,  with  high  eulogy  of 
the  preacher's  work  and  worth.  He  scanned  the  various  por- 
traits of  the  preacher 
on  the  wall  back  of 
the  cenotaph.  And 
then,  piloted  by  our 
good  friend,  he  de- 
scended into  the 
crypt  under  the  pul- 
pit where  the  honored 
remains  are  depos- 
ited. The  clerical 
trappings  in  which 
Whitefield  was  bur- 
ied, —  gown,  cassock, 
bands,  and  wig,  — 
had  disappeared 
when  the  original 
coffin  was  opened 
fifty  years  after  the 
burial.  On  the  coffin 
Percy  noticed  a  skull 
which  he  was  told 
was  a  cast  of  White- 
field's  skull  taken  many  years  ago.  By  its  side  was  a  box  con- 
taining an  arm  bone ;  and  the  gruesome  story  of  its  theft  years 
ago,  its  conveyance  to  England,  and  final  return,  when  the 
purloiner  was  dying  and  full  of  repentance,  was  related  to  him. 
Two  other  coffins,  across  the  feet  of  which  Whitefield's  lay, 
contained  the  dust  of  the  earlier  ministers  of  the  church,  —  the 
Rev.  Jonathan  Parsons,  Whitefield's  intimate  friend,  at  whose 


THE    "OLD    CHURCH    OF    FEDERAL    STREET 
NEWBURYPORT. 


ROUND  ABOUT  NEWBUETPORT.  77 

home  he  died,  and  the  Rev.  Joseph  Prince.  They  died,  re- 
spectively, in  1776  and  1791.  In  the  vestry  Percy  was  shown 
Mr.  Parsons's  quaint  old  desk  upon  which  Whitefield  wrote. 

Back  in  the  church  the  pew  which  Caleb  Gushing  occupied, 
No.  53,  at  the  end  of  the  row  on  the  right  side  of  the  pulpit, 
was  pointed  out  to  him ;  and  that  of  Hannah  Flagg  Gould, 
No.  44,  the  first  next  the  pulpit,  on  the  broad  aisle.  Lastly, 
having  been  told  of  the  whispering  gallery  of  the  church,  he 
tested  this  feature  with  most  satisfactory  result. 


PARSONAGE    WHERE    WHITEFIELD    DIED. 

The  parsonage  where  Whitefield  died  stands  close  by,  on 
School  Street,  upon  which  the  church  sides  —  the  second  house 
beyond,  now  a  private  dwelling  adjoining  an  old-fashioned 
garden.  We  next  visited  this  house,  while  the  story  of  the 
preacher's  last  dramatic  exhortation  to  the  people  was  related 
in  this  wise.  He  had  come  from  Exeter,  N.H.,  where  he  had 
preached,  after  a  week  of  incessant  labors.  His  arrival  at  the 
parsonage  was  at  nightfall  of  Saturday.  When  the  early 
evening  prayers  were  over,  he  sought  his  chamber  exhausted. 


78 


LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 


Meanwhile  this  narrojyv  little  street  continued  crowded  with 
people  displaying  the  greatest  anxiety  to  hear  his  voice.  So, 
halting  on  the  stairway,  candle  in  hand,  he  faced  the  open  door 
and  exhorted  them  in  his  most  impassioned  and  fervid  manner, 
with  tearful  eyes,  till  the  candle  had  burned  away  and  died  out 
in  its  socket.  Then  he  ascended  to  his  room,  —  it  was  the 
west  corner  chamber  of  the  second  story,  —  and  at  six  o'clock 
the  next  morning  he  breathed  his  last.  Upon  the  occasion  of 


BIRTHPLACE    OF     WM.    LLOYD    GARRISON    (House  on  the   Right) 
School    St.,    Newburyport. 

his  funeral  in  the  old  church,  where  he  was  to  have  preached 
on  the  day  of  his  death,  a  vast  concourse  assembled,  harbor- 
guns  were  fired,  and  all  the  village  bells  tolled. 

As  we  returned  to  Federal  Street  Percy's  attention  was 
directed  to  the  first  house  next  the  church,  on  the  same  side  of 
School  Street,  which  he  had  passed  unnoticed  in  going  to  the 
old  parsonage.  This,  he  was  told,  was  William  Lloyd  Garri- 
son's birthplace.  Nearly  opposite  where  the  public  school- 


ROUND  ABOUT  NEWBUllYPOllT.  79 

house  now  stands,  was  the  "  writing  "  or  primary  school  where 
he  got  the  beginnings  of  his  education.  Percy  wanted  to  look 
inside  the  cottage;  but  he  was  assured  that  it  really  wasn't 
worth  while,  for  everything  is  changed  since  the  Garrisons' 
day.  Furthermore,  their  life  here  covered  but  a  short  period. 

"  They  were  in  humble  circumstances  when  they  came  to 
Newburyport,"  our  talk  ran  on,  "  so  they  hired  only  a  few 
rooms  in  this  little  house,  then  the  home  of  Captain  and  Mar- 
•tha  Farnham,  he  being  captain  of  a  vessel  in  the  coasting  trade. 
They  came  here  from  New  Brunswick  in  the  spring  of  the  year 
of  William  Lloyd's  birth,  which  was  on  the  10th  of  December, 
1805.  The  father,  Abijah  Garrison,  was,  like  his  friend  Farn- 
ham, a  ship-master.  Three  years  after  the  birth  of  William 
Lloyd,  and  after  making  sundry  little  voyages,  Captain  Garri- 
son disappeared  and  never  returned.  The  mother  with  her 
children  was  thus  left  destitute.  Meanwhile,  between  her  and 
Martha  Farnham  a  strong  friendship  had  grown  lip ;  so  the 
little  family  was  sheltered  here  till  the  mother  could  make 
provision  for  its  support.  She  found  some  employment  as  a 
nurse ;  and  William  Lloyd,  when  old  enough,  was  sent  out  on 
'  'lection '  and  '  training '  days  to  peddle  the  i  nice  sticks  of 
molasses  candy  which  she  was  an  adept  in  making,'  thus  bring- 
ing a  few  pennies  to  the  scant  family  purse.  At  length,  when 
he  was  between  seven  and  eight  years  old,  the  mother  with  the 
other  children  moved  to  Lynn,  there  the  better  to  follow  her 
calling,  while  he  was  left  behind  in  a  new  home.  This  was 
with  Deacon  Bartlett,  deacon  of  the  Baptist  church  which  the 
family  had  attended,  who  was  living  down  near  the  river." 

"  Can  we  see  that  house  ?  " 

"  It  has  disappeared.  Deacon  Bartlett,  too,  was  in  humble 
circumstances.  To  gain  a  living  he  sawed  wood,  sharpened 
saws,  and  sold  apples  from  a  stand  in  front  of  his  dwelling. 
To  him  and  his  home  the  boy  became  much  attached.  His 
schooling  was  confined  to  a  grammar  school  on  <  the  Mall,'  in 
the  town  center,  and  after  three  months  there  he  was  taken  out 


80  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 


WILLIAM    LLOYD  GARRISON. 


HOUND  ABOUT  NEWBURYPORT.  81 

to  do  chores  for  the  deacon.  He  was  fond  of  music,  and  sang 
on  Sundays  in  the  Baptist  choir,  sometimes  acting  as  chorister. 
At  nine  he  was  apprenticed  to  a  shoemaker  in  Lynn  to  learn 
the  trade ;  but  this  work  soon  proved  too  hard  for  his  delicate 
frame.  At  ten  he  went  to  Baltimore,  Md.,  with  his  mother 
and  brother,  to  work  for  another  Lynn  shoemaker  who  was 
moving  his  business  there.  That  enterprise  failing,  he  re- 
turned to  Deacon  Bartlett's  home,  and  shortly  after  was  ap- 
prenticed to  a  cabinet-maker  in  Haverhill.  Becoming  homesick, 
he  soon  ran  off  and  tried  to  get  back  to  Deacon  Bartlett ;  but 
on  the  way  he  was  restored  to  his  master.  A  little  later,  how- 
ever, he  was  permitted  to  return  to  his  old  friend. 

"  At  thirteen  he  became  an  apprentice,  for  a  term  of  seven 
years,  in  the  office  of  the  Newburyport  Herald  to  learn  the 
printer's  trade.  This  proved  the  vocation  most  to  his  liking, 
and  in  it  his  progress  was  rapid.  He  read  and  studied  much, 
and  early  began  contributing  to  the  paper.  His  first  contribu- 
tions were  made  secretly,  under  the  nom  de  plume  of  l  An  Old 
Bachelor.'  Early,  too,  he  displayed  an  interest  in  politics,  and 
engaged  in  political  writing  for  other  journals.  His  appren- 
ticeship ended  in  his  twenty-first  year,  and  he  immediately 
launched  his  own  journal.  This  was  the  Free  Press,  in  which 
Whittier's  first  poems  appeared.  Then  and  there  the  young 
editor  and  agitator  began  his  uncompromising  war  against 
slavery  and  his  vehement  advocacy  of  unpopular  reforms. 
After  about  two  years  of  toil  he  sold  out  the  Free  Press  as 
an  unprofitable  venture,  and  went  to  Boston  to  seek  new 
employment. 

"  This  closed  Garrison's  Newburyport  life.  In  Boston  he 
became,  first,  editor  of  The  National  Philanthropist,  the  pioneer 
total  abstinence  paper  of  the  country.  Thence,  after  a  little 
while,  he  went  up  to  Bennington,  Vermont,  to  become  editor  of 
the  Journal  of  the  Times.  In  1829-  '30,  he  was  in  Baltimore 
again,  editing  the  Genius  of  Universal  Emancipation.  During 
this  editorship  he  spent  forty-nine  days  in  jail  for  non-payment 


82  LI  TEE  ART  PILGRIMAGES. 

of  a  line  of  fifty  dollars  imposed  upon  him  for  libel  in  denoun- 
cing in  his  paper  a  Newburyport  ship-master,  Francis  Todd,  as 
being  engaged  in  '  domestic  piracy/  in  shipping  a  cargo  of  slaves. 
"  Back  again  in  Boston,  on  New  Year's  Day,  1831,  he  started 
The  Liberator,  with  his  demand  for  unconditional  emancipation, 
and  his  opening  declaration, (  I  am  in  earnest ;  I  will  not  equiv- 
ocate ;  I  will  not  retract  a  single  inch,  —  and  I  will  be  heard  ! ' 
In  this  bold  enterprise  he  had  at  the  start  but  a  single  asso- 
ciate, —  Isaac  Knapp,  a  fellow  townsman  of  Newburyport,  —  and 
a  negro  boy  for  assistant  at  the  press.  Garrison  himself  used 
both  pen  and  composing-stick.  His  office  was  an  attic  in  a 


VOL.  1.1 WILLIAM    LLOYD    GARRISON    AND    ISAAC    KNAPP,    PUBLISHERS.  IttU. 

BOSTON,  MASSACHUSETTS.)  OUR  COUNTRY  is  THE  WORLD — OUR  COUNTRYMEN  ARE  MANKIND.  [SATURDAY,  MAY  28,  183 

FACSIMILE   OF   THE   TITLE    OF    "THE    LIBERATOR," 

dingy  building,  where  he  lived  as  well  as  worked.  This  was 
the  famous  newspaper  which  continued  through  obloquy  and 
mobbing,  peace  and  war,  for  thirty-five  years,  till  the  end  for 
which  it  had  been  instituted  was  accomplished. 

"  Throughout  his  life  Garrison  retained  an  affection  for  his 
birthplace.  On  the  fiftieth  anniversary  of  the  completion  of 
his  apprenticeship  with  the  Herald,  he  came  down  here  to  New- 
buryport and  celebrated  the  event  in  the  old  office,  when  he  <  set 
up '  at  the  case  a  poem  of  Whittier's.  And  three  years  later, 
shortly  before  his  death,  he  again  visited  the  old  office  and 
1  set  up  '  one  of  his  own  sonnets.  He  died  in  May,  1879,  after 
his  work  was  finished,  and  a  '  chorus  of  affectionate  congratu- 


ROUND  ABOUT  NEWBURYPOET.  83 

lations  had  marked  his  closing  days.'  His  grave  is  in  the  Forest 
Hills  Cemetery  of  Boston." 

Later  in  our  ramble  we  saw  the  statue  of  Garrison,  down- 
town, in  Brown  Square.  Percy  had  already  seen  Warner's 
nobler  statue  in  Boston. 

A  short  walk  brought  us  to  the  landmark  of  the  Lowell  fam- 
ily. This  was  the  old  house  on  Temple  Street  off  Federal  Street, 
under  the  shadow  of  the  tall  elm,  where  lived  the  grandfather 
of  James  Russell  Lowell.  From  here  the  poet  took  the  painted 
panel,  originally  set  above  the  fireplace  of  the  chief  room,  which 
he  placed  against  the  wall  of  his  own  study  at  "Elmwood," 
in  Cambridge.  It  presents  a  picture  of  a  merry  clerical  party, 
and  beneath  is  the  legend  : 

"Iii  essentialibus  unitas,  in  non-essentialibus 
libertas,  in  omnibus  charitas  —  " 

The  legend  was  the  motto  of  the  poet's  great-grandfather,  the 
Rev.  John  Lowell,  who,  true  to  its  spirit,  was  the  only  preacher 
to  open  his  pulpit  to  Whitefield  upon  the  evangelist's  first 
coming  to  Newburyport  in  1740. 

This  John  Lowell  (born  in  Boston,  1702  ;  died  in  Newbury- 
port,  1767)  was  the  first  minister  of  the  first  church  of  New- 
buryport,  which  in  after  time  became  the  first  Unitarian  Church. 
He  served  there  for  forty-three  years,  from  his  twenty-fourth 
year  to  his  death.  He  has  been  described  as  a  man  of  excep- 
tional culture  and  refinement,  of  scholarly  attainments,  and  a 
free  and  liberal  user  of  his  powers,  giving  tone  to  the  commu- 
nity in  which  he  lived.  Thomas  Wentworth  Higginson,  his  later 
successor  in  the  Unitarian  pulpit,  alludes  to  him  as  almost,  if 
not  quite,  the  earliest  of  liberal  preachers  anywhere.  He  was 
the  direct  descendant  of  the  first  John  Lowell,  in  America,  —  or 
Lowle,  as  the  ancestor  spelt  the  name,  —  one  of  the  original  set- 
tlers of  Newbury.  His  son,  John  Lowell,  was  eminent  as  a  jurist 
and  was  the  author  of  the  clause  in  the  Massachusetts  Bill  of 
Rights  declaring  that  "  all  men  are  born  free  and  equal."  And 


84 


LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES, 


his  three  sons,  —  John,  the  pamphleteer,  Francis  Cabot,  the  man- 
ufacturer (for  whom  the  city  of  Lowell,  Massachusetts,  was 
named),  and  Charles,  the  minister,  —  with  their  sons,  ably  sus- 


LOWELL    HOUSE. 
(From   "  Ould   Newbury,"   by  permission.) 

tained  the  Lowell  name.     James  Russell,  the  minister  Charles's 
son,  led  the  family  in  distinction  as  the  man  of  letters. 

On  another  cross-street  near  by,  we  saw  Hannah  Flagg 
Gould's  home,  —  a  broad,  deep,  brick  house,  of  Colonial  or  pro- 
vincial fashion,  well  set,  with  ample  side  yard.  Hers  was  a 


ROUND  ABOUT  NEWBURYPORT. 


85 


*t 

I  § 

52.     C 


86  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

name  unknown  to  Percy  before  this  pilgrimage ;  but  this  was 
not  at  all  surprising,  for,  although  she  was  a  favorite  writer 
in  her  day,  that  was  a  day  long  since  passed.  She  was  of  a 
family,  he  now  learned,  identified  in  later  years  with  science  as 
well  as  with  literature.  Most  distinguished  of  the  family  was 
the  late  Benjamin  Apthorp  Gould,  the  astronomer;  while  it  is 
to-day  represented  in  letters  by  Elizabeth  Porter  Gould. 
Hannah  was  the  daughter  of  a  soldier  of  the  Revolution,  who 
was  at  Lexington  and  served  all  through  the  war.  He  was 
the  hero  of  her  little  poem  "  The  Veteran  and  the  Child,"  once 
a  favorite  piece  for  school  declamation  ;  and  the  child  was  her 
nephew,  the  astronomer.  The  scar  of  a  bullet  wound  which 
the  veteran  bore  on  his  cheek  inspired  her  verses  entitled 
"  The  Scar  of  Lexington." 

She  was  born  in  Vermont,  but  was  brought  to  Newburyport 
when  a  child  of  eleven,  in  1800,  and  here  her  life  was  spent. 
Her  writings  were  begun  early,  and  continued  until  a  few 
years  before  her  death.  These  consisted  of  poems  collected 
in  book  form  in  1832,  1835,  and  1847  ;  prose  sketches  later 
brought  together  under  the  title  of  "  Gathered  Leaves  " ;  and 
many  verses  for  children. 

Our  ride  took  us  along  High  Street,  past  the  delightful 
Mall,  the  old  Sewall  place,  and  the  Caleb  Gushing  place, 
toward  "  Old  Town " ;  then  past  the  vine-embowered  home  of 
Whittier's  schoolmaster  —  the  Joshua  Coffin  homestead, — and, 
just  beyond,  the  Old  Town  church  with  the  oldest  bury  ing- 
ground  opposite ;  thence  by  a  roundabout  way  over  old  New- 
bury  and  the  Byfield  parish. 

The  Longfellow  homestead  was  seen  in  Byfield,  on  a  sightly 
spot  at  the  head  of  tide-water  on  the  Parker  River,  in  the  midst 
of  a  picturesque  region.  The  ancient  house  remained  standing 
well  into  the  poet's  day.  It  is  supposed  to  have  been  built 
by  William  Longfellow?  the  family  progenitor,  who  came  from 
Yorkshire  and  settled  here  about  1651,  subsequently  marrying 
one  of  the  Sewall  girls  —  Anne  Sewall.  I  quoted  a  sketch  of 


ROUND  ABOUT  NEWBURYPORT. 


87 


o 

s 
-    m 


—  •     ^ 

2.   m 


O     CD 

C 


88  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

the  homestead  given  in  a  letter  to  Whittier's. biographer,  by 

one  of  the  later  generation  who  was  born  beneath  its  roof,  as 
were  his  father,  grandfather,  great-grandfather,  and  great- 
great-grandfather,  son  of  William  Longfellow.  He  described 
the  rear  roof  descending  nearly  to  the  ground ;  a  long  kitchen 
with  low  ceiling,  wide  fireplace,  and  a  big  brick  oven  in  which 
were  baked  the  Thanksgiving  pies  and  puddings ;  a  large 
"  best  room,"  and  winding  stairs  to  upper  rooms ;  in  the  yard  at 
the  end  of  the  house,  the  well-curb  with  its  long  sweep,  in 
front  the  granite  horse-block,  and  over  all  a  large  spreading 
elm. 

Then  the  Longfellow  ancestry  was  recalled,  beginning  with 
the  emigrant  William.  He  was  an  ensign  in  a  Newbury  com- 
pany, which  took  part  in  the  disastrous  expedition  of  Sir 
William  Phips  against  Quebec  in  1690.  He  was  lost  on  the 
return  voyage  of  the  fleet,  when  the  vessel  which  contained 
the  Newbury  company  went  ashore  during  a  fierce  storm  on 
a  desolate  island.  He  is  said  to  have  been  a  merchant.  His 
son  Stephen  was  a  blacksmith.  Stephen's  son,  Stephen  2d, 
was  a  teacher,  graduating  from  Harvard  in  1742.  He  was  the 
first  of  the  Longfellows  in  Portland,  Maine.  His  son,  Stephen 
3d,  was  a  judge.  His  son,  Stephen  4th,  was  a  lawyer,  and  the 
father  of  the  poet,  "  whose  birthplace  and  boyhood  home,"  I 
concluded,  "  we  shall  see  on  our  pilgrimage  into  Maine." 


VII. 

THE   "OLD   TOWN    BY  THE   SEA." 

Birthplaces  of  T.  B.  Aldrich,  James  T.  Fields,  Celia  Thaxter, "  Mrs.  Part- 
ington."—  Scenes  of  various  classics. — On  the  old  Pier.  —  The 
"  Earl  of  Halifax "  taverns.  —  Scene  of  the  opening  picture  of  "Lady 
Wentworth." — Aldrich  in  Portsmouth,  and  afterward.  —  The  old 
Athenaeum.  — James  T.  Fields's  career. — Benjamin  P.  Shillaber  and 
the  development  of  "Mrs.  Partington  "  ;  His  Carpet  Bag.  —  Some 
Portsmouth  mansions.  — Daniel  Webster's  home.  — The  Wentworth 
"  Great  House  "  at  Little  Harbor.  —  On  Kittery  side. 

WE  went  on  to  Portsmouth,  New  Hampshire,  by  an  evening 
train,  and  spent  that  night  at  the  Rockingham  House. 

Our  interest  in  the  drowsy  "  old  town  by  these  a  "  was,  pri- 
marily, as  the  birthplace  of  Thomas  Bailey  Aldrich,  James  T. 
Fields,  Celia  Thaxter  (the  "  poet  of  the  Shoals "),  her  cousin, 
Albert  Laighton,  and  "Mrs.  Partington"  (Benjamin  Penhal- 
low  Shillaber) ;  and  as  the  scene  of  various  classics.  But  the 
quaint  town  itself,  with  its  picturesquely  faded  glories,  its 
rambling  old  streets,  historic  mansions,  and  stately  houses  of  a 
past  type,  —  these  engaged  our  attention  quite  as  fully  as  its 
literary  landmarks,  for  they  constitute  its  especial  charm. 
Everywhere  are  relics  of  its  grandeur  in  the  sumptuous  days 
of  the  West  India  trade,  when  Portsmouth  bade  fair  as  a  mari- 
time port  to  outstrip  both  Boston  and  New  York.  We  found 
the  town  yet  as  Aldrich  pictured  it  a  dozen  years  ago  in  his 
delightful  sketch.  It  was  still  "  the  interesting  widow  of  a 
once  lively  commerce,"  enjoying  now  the  comfort  which  comes 
with  sagacious  traffic  in  "  first  mortgage  bonds." 

After  breakfast  at  our  fine  inn  we  strolled  first  along  the 
older  streets  tending  toward  the  river  side.  We  lingered  about 

89 


90  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

the   old  "worm   eaten  wharves,  some  of   them    covered  by  a 
sparse,  unhealthy  beard  of  grass  "  and  gazed  at  the  weather- 


THOMAS    BAILEY    ALDRICH    IN    BOYHOOD. 

(From   "The  Story  of  a  Bad   Boy,"   in  the   Riverside   School    Library.     By  permission  of 
Houghton,  Mifflin,  &  Co.) 

stained  unoccupied  warehouses  "  with  their  sarcastic  cranes 
projecting  from  the  eaves  "  for  hoisting  cargoes  which  no  longer 
come  ;  and  looked  out-,  over  the  now  idle  Piscataqua. 


THE   "OLD    TOWN  BY   THE   SEA."  91 

We  strove  to  recall  the  scenes  presented  here  in  the  late 
eighteenth  and  early  nineteenth  centuries,  —  when  "at  the 
windows  of  these  musty  counting-rooms  which  overlook  the 
river  used  to  stand  portly  merchants  in  knee  breeches  and  silver 
shoe-buckles,  and  plum  colored  coats  with  ruffles  at  the  wrists, 
waiting  for  their  ships  to  come  up  the  Narrows;"  and  when 
"  the  cries  of  stevedores  and  the  chants  of  sailors  at  the  wind 
lass  used  to  echo  along  the  shore  where  all  is  silence  now."  We 
tried  to  picture  the  busy  scenes  of  shipbuilding  days,  when 
"  Portsmouth  turned  out  the  best  ships  as  it  did  the  ablest  ship- 
captains  in  the  world."  When  she  set  a-sailing  with  their  rov- 
ing commissions,  in  the  War  of  1812,  her  fleet  of  privateers, 
"  the  sauciest  small  craft  on  record."  When  she  built  those 
famous  California  clippers  of  1849  and  ten  years  on-;  and 
those  as  famous  clipper  ships  of  the  packet  lines  which  plied 
between  Boston  or  New  York  and  Liverpool,  London,  Havre, 
and  Antwerp.  We  tried,  too,  to  recall  the  "  gondolas,"  or  "  gon- 
dalows  "  as  the  natives  termed  them,  —  the  freighters  of  earlier 
days  which  sailed  up  and  down  the  river,  —  those  queer,  broad, 
flat-bottomed  scows,  with  huge  lee-boards,  one  on  each  side,  in 
place  of  keel  or  center-board,  and  a  great  lateen  sail  set  on  a 
short  stump  mast;  and  the  passenger  ships,  rigged  like  the 
freighters. 

We  lingered  longest  on  the  old  pier  at  the  foot  of  Court 
Street,  which,  during  the  War  of  1812,  was  "a  noisy,  busy 
place  crowded  with  sailors  and  soldiers ; "  and  we  sat  with 
Aldrich's  lounger  in  the  shadow  of  the  silent  warehouses  look- 
ing out  upon  the  lonely  river  as  it  went  "  murmuring  past  the 
town."  To  us,  as  to  him,  it  was  "  a  slumberous,  delightful, 
lazy  place."  Now,  as  then,  "  the  sunshine  seems  to  be  a  foot 
deep  on  the  planks  of  the  dusty  wharf  which  yields  up  to  the 
warmth  a  vague  perfume  of  the  cargoes  of  rum,  molasses,  and 
spice  that  used  to  be  piled  upon  it.  The  river  is  as  blue  as  the 
inside  of  a  harebell.  The  opposite  shore  stretches  along  like 
the  silvery  coast  of  fairy  land."  Directly  opposite  us  spread 


92  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

the  Navy  Yard  in  Kittery,  Maine,  "with  its  neat  officers' 
quarters  and  workshops,  and  arsenals,  and  its  vast  shiphouses 
in  which  the  keel  of  many  a  famous  frigate  has  been  laid."  At 
our  right  lay  a  cluster  of  small  islands,  on  the  larger  of  which 
are  the  fading  remains  of  earthworks  thrown  up  in  the  War  of 
1812.  Between  this  island  and  another,  opened  the  Narrows, 
three  miles  off,  to  the  sea. 

Returning  up  Court  Street  we  passed,  in  a  tenement  house 
at  the  corner  of  Atkinson  Street,  the  old  frame  of  John 
Stavers's  "  Earl  of  Halifax  "  tavern,  —  changed  in  name,  after 
the  Eoyalist  Stavers's  hard  experience  with  the  "liberty  men" 
at  the  outbreak  of  the  Revolution,  to  the  "  William  Pitt." 
Here,  it  was  related,  Lafayette  was  received  in  state  by  officers 
of  the  French  fleet  anchored  in  the  harbor  in  1782;  hither 
came  John  Hancock  in  his  gaudy  coach  with  his  retinue  of 
servants  ;  here  the  portly  General  Hany  Knox  often  stopped  ; 
here  Washington  was  received  by  New  Hampshire's  governor 
on  his  visit  in  1789.  This  was  the  second  "  Earl  of  Halifax  " 
tavern.  It  was  the  first  one,  on  another  site,  which  was  the 
opening  scene  of  Longfellow's  "  Lady  Wentworth  "  : 

"  One  hundred  years  ago,  and  something  more, 
lu  Queen  Street,  Portsmouth,  at  her  tavern  door. 
Neat  as  a  pin,  and  blooming  as  a  rose, 
Stood  Mistress  Stavers  in  her  furbelows, 
Just  as  her  cuckoo-clock  was  striking  nine. 
Above  her  head,  resplendent  on  the  sign, 
The  portrait  of  the  Earl  of  Halifax, 
In  scarlet  coat  and  periwig  of  flax, 
Surveyed  at  leisure  all  her  varied  charms, 
Her  cap,  her  bodice,  her  white  folded  arms, 
And  half  resolved,  though  he  was  past  his  prime, 
And  rather  damaged  by  the  lapse  of  time, 
To  fall  down  at  her  feet,  and  to  declare 
The  passion  that  had  driven  him  to  despair/' 

We  would  visit  the  "  Great  House  "  where  Martha  Hilton 
seven  years  after  reigned  as  Lady  Wentworth,  I  promised,  later 


THE   "  OLD    TOWN  BY   THE    SEAS 


93 


in  the  day.  In  speaking  of  stage-coach  times,  I  remarked  that 
Bartholomew  Stavers,  brother  of  the  "  Earl  of  Halifax  "  land- 
lord, established  the  first  stage  between  Portsmouth  and  Boston 
beginning  in  1761.  It  was  announced  as  "  a  large  stage  chair," 
with  two  horses,  "  to  perform  once  a  week  and  carrying  four 
passengers."  This  was  the  first  regular  stage  north  of  Boston. 
Stavers's  "  Portsmouth  Flying  Stage-Coach,"  with  from  four  to 
six  horses,  running  every  Thursday,  fare  three  dollars,  was 
got  under  way  two  years  later.  It  was  the  aged  skeleton  of 


BIRTHPLACE    OF    T.   B.   ALDRICH. 

the  last  of  these  yellow  mail  coaches,  abandoned  when  the 
railroad  came  in,  which  the  boys  ran  down  the  hill  from 
"  Ezra  Wingate's "  tumble-down  barn  and  landed  in  their 
bonfire  in  the  Square,  with  such  dire  results,  on  that  memor- 
able Fourth  of  July,  as  related  in  Aldrich's  "  Story  of  a 
Bad  Boy." 

Farther  along  on  Court  Street  we  came  to  Aldrich's  birth- 
place (born  1836  — ).  This  was  the  home  of  his  grandfather,  a 
comfortable  house  with  broad  hall  running  through  the  middle, 
cheerful  rooms  and  old-time  furnishings,  noble  trees  in  front 


94  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

and  garden  behind  :  all  so  pleasingly  pictured  in  the  same 
classic,  —  "  The  Story  of  a  Bad  Boy,"  -  -  which  I  was  glad 
to  find  Percy  knew  well,  and  counted  among  his  treasured 
possessions. 

"  The  best  part  of  Aldrieh's  boyhood,"  I  chatted  on,  "  was 
passed  here.  Before  he  left  the  old  town,  in  his  teens  to  go  to 
work,  he  had  tried  his  hand  at  verse-making,  and  so  effec- 
tively that,  as  the  autobiographical  story  intimates,  an  uncle  in 
New  York  hastened  him  into  a  clerkship  lest  he  should  be- 
come a  poet !  He  was  a  merchant's  son,  born  the  same  year  as 
Celia  Thaxter  (born  Laighton).  When  he  was  about  a  year  and 
a  half  old,  his  parents  moved  to  New  Orleans,  and  his  home 
was  with  them  there  till  it  was  time  for  his  education 
to  begin.  Then  he  was  brought  back  to  attend  the  Ports- 
mouth schools,  under  his  grandfather's  care.  He  was 
through  the  high  school  and  prepared  for  college  when 
his  father  died,  and  his  mother  returned  to  her  old  home 
with  small  resources.  So  his  hope  of  a  course  at  Har- 
vard had  to  be  abandoned.  Then  the  New  York  uncle  made  a 
place  in  his  own  counting-room  for  him,  and  he  tried  hard  to 
learn  the  ways  of  business.  But  while  he  toiled  faithfully  at 
the  clerk's  desk,  he  kept  on  writing,  withal  doing  much  reading 
of  good  literature ;  and  at  length,  in  spite  of  his  good  uncle's 
efforts,  he  had  actually  become  the  dreaded  thing — a  poet.  The 
appearance  of  his  tender  ballad  of  <  Babie  Bell'  and  its  wide 
republication  in  the  newspapers,  first  brought  him  into  the 
bright  light. 

"  You  remember  the  often  quoted  opening  lines  ?  — 

4  Have  you  not  heard  the  poets  tell 
How  came  the  dainty  Babie  Bell 

Into  this  world  of  ours  ? 
The  gates  of  heaven  were  left  ajar ; 
With  folded  hands  and  dreamy  eyes, 
Wandering  out  of  Paradise, 
She  saw  this  planet,  like  a  star, 


THE   "OLD    TOWN  BY   THE  S~EA."  95 

Hung  in  the  glistening  depths  of  even,  — 
Its  bridges,  running  to  and  fro, 
O'er  which  the  white-winged  angels  go, 

Bearing  the  holy  dead  to  heaven. 
She  touched  a  bridge  of  flowers,  —  those  feet, 
So  light  they  did  not  bend  the  bells 
Of  the  celestial  asphodels ! 
They  fell  like  dew  upon  the  flowers, 
Then  all  the  air  grew  strangely  sweet  J 
And  thus  came  dainty  Babie  Bell 

Into  this  world  of  ours.' 

"  He  was  at  this  time  nineteen,  at  the  end  of  about  tnree 
years  in  the  counting-room,  and  was  publishing  both  verse  and 
prose  in  the  Putnam's  and  Knickerbocker  magazines,  and  also 
in  the  New  York  Evening  Mirror,  a  paper  in  which  was  inter- 
ested a  group  of  poets,  among  them  Fitz-Greene  Halleck,  whose 
friendship  he  early  won. 

"  Now  Aldrich  felt  justified  in  abandoning  the  counting-room 
for  the  literary  workshop.  He  began  as  manuscript  and  proof- 
reader for  a  New  York  publishing  house  on  a  slender  salary, 
and  the  next  ten  or  twelve  years  were  full  of  work  with  small 
irregular  returns.  For  a  while  he  was  a  regular  contributor  to 
the  Evening  Mirror.  For  three  years,  1856-1859,  he  was  on 
the  Home  Journal,  then  edited  by  Nathaniel  P.  Willis.  In  the 
early  sixties  he  was  associated  with  a  clever  band  in  the  Satur- 
day Press,  an  unconventional  journal  of  a  brief  and  eccentric 
career. 

"  During  this  period  he  brought  out  half  a  dozen  volumes 
of  verse  and  prose.  These  included,  in  1854,  his  juvenile 
verses  gathered  in  <  The  Bells,  a  Collection  of  Chimes ' ;  in 
1856,  the  story  of  '  Daisy's  Necklace,  and  \Vrhat  Came  of  It ' ; 
in  1858,  'The  Ballad  of  Babie  Bell,  and  Other  Poems,'  and 
'  The  Course  of  True  Love  Never  did  Run  Smooth ' ;  in  1861, 
'Pampinea';  in  1862,  the  prose  romance  <  Out  of  His  Head'; 
in  1863,  <  Poems,'  a  new  collection  ;  in  1865,  the  first  complete 
edition  of  his  poems  up  to  that  time.  After  his  marriage,  in 


96  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

1865,  he  removed  to  Boston,  which  has  since  been  his  home. 
His  '  Story  of  a  Bad  Boy '  appeared  in  1869.  Next  came  the 
unique  '  Marjorie  Daw/  which  has  been  translated  into  several 
languages.  Later,  the  tales  and  novels  which  increased  his 
fame  —  <  Prudence  Palfrey ';  » A  Rivermouth  Romance/  laid 
here  in  Portsmouth ;  <  The  Queen  of  Sheba  > ;  '  The  Still  water 
Tragedy  ' ;  with  a  pretty  steady  flow  of  lyrics  and  poems. 

"In  1870  his  first  work  as  an  editor  began,  in  the  con- 
duct of  Every  Saturday,  started  that  year  as  a  journal  of 
extracts  from  foreign  periodical  literature,  and  subsequently 
expanded  into  an  illustrated  newspaper  after  the  fashion  of  the 
London  Graphic,  its  career  covering  about  four  years.  His 
next  charge  was  the  Atlantic  Monthly,  which  he  edited  for  ten 
years,  1880-1890;  giving  to  that  high-bred  periodical  an  especial 
brilliancy.  While  in  the  Atlantic  editorship  his  poetical  drama 
of  *  Mercedes '  appeared,  and  was  performed  in  a  New  York 
theater;  also  his  sketches  of  travel  under  the  happy  title  of 
<  From  Poukapog  to  Pesth ' ;  his  '  Wyndham  Towers/  and  <  The 
Sister's  Tragedy.'  Of  a  later  period  are  his  *  Unguarded  Gates/ 
and  '  Judith  and  Holofernes.'  His  collected  works  have  been 
published  in  England,  France,  and  Germany,  and  his  lyrics  are 
classed  in  English  literature  with  the  best  in  the  language. 
He  wears  with  modesty  the  honorary  degree  of  LL.D.  which 
Yale  conferred  upon  him  full  thirty  years  ago. 

"  Of  the  thoroughness  of  Aldrich's  workmanship,"  I  ven- 
tured, "  not  too  much  can  be  said  in  praise.  He  plans  and  fash- 
ions his  productions  with  the  precision  of  the  true  artist,  and 
never  tires  of  revision  to  bring  them  toward  the  perfection  at 
which  he  aims.  As  one  critic  has  observed,  he  believes  thor- 
oughly in  that  long,  patient  search  for  the  best  word  of  which 
the  unthinking  reader  little  dreams.  And  in  this  tireless 
patience  the  critic  discovers  the  secret  of  the  distinction  of 
style  which  makes  his  prose  writing  <a  model  of  directness, 
and  his  flawless  lyrics  live  in  the  memory  like  those  of 
Herrick,  of  Lovelace,  and  Carew.' " 


THE   "  OLD    TOWN  BY   THE  SEA."  97 

We  were  by  this  time  strolling  along  "  The  Parade,"  the 
large  open  space  upon  which  the  Old  North  Church  faces, 
formed  by  the  junction  of  four  streets.  Crossing  the  square, 
we  next  visited  the  Athenaeum,  the  old  library  and  museum, 
instituted  shortly  after  the  war  of  1812.  The  boy  Aldrich 
haunted  this  place ;  and  here  years  before,  James  T.  Fields,  in 
his  favorite  corner  in  the  broad  window  seat  of  the  library 
room,  mastered  the  greater  part  of  the  collection  of  books. 

While  here  I  recalled  the  career  of  Fields  (born  1816  ; 
died  1881),  as  the  literary  publisher,  the  story  running  as 
follows.  He  was  born  on  the  last  day  of  December,  the  son 
of  a  ship-master.  The  father  was  lost  at  sea  soon  after  the 
boy's  birth,  leaving  the  mother  with  scant  means  to  bring  up 
his  elder  brother  and  himself.  At  fourteen,  after  graduating 
from  the  high  school,  he  left  home  and  went  to  Boston,  where 
a  family  friend  had  found  a  place  for  him  as  boy  in  the  shop 
which  became  the  familiar  "  Old  Corner  Bookstore."  Within 
a  few  weeks  he  was  promoted  from  the  boy's  place  to  a 
clerkship. 

His  quick  absorption  of  book-lore  was  as  marked  as  his 
ready  acquirement  of  the  details  of  business.  Every  night  he 
would  carry  to  his  lodgings  an  armful  of  books,  the  contents  of 
which  he  would  often  absorb  before  returning  to  work  the  next 
morning.  He  early  joined  the  Mercantile  Library  Association, 
then  newly  instituted  ;  and  there  began  a  friendship,  which  was 
lifelong,  with  Edwin  P.  Whipple,  the  essayist.  They  were  then 
boys  of  eighteen  or  nineteen.  Whipple  has  given  this  sketch 
of  their  acquirements  when  they  first  met,  which  shows  the  fine 
sort  of  self-culture  practiced  by  the  aspiring  youth  of  that 
period ;  and  I  read  these  reminiscent  passages  transcribed  in 
my  note-book  : 

"  It  happened  that  both  of  us  were  inflamed  by  a  passionate  love  for 
literature  and  by  a  cordial  admiration  of  men  of  letters ;  that  we  had 
read  —  of  course,  superficially  —  most  of  the  leading  poets  and  prose  writers 
of  Great  Britain,  and  had  a  tolerably  correct  idea  of  their  chronological 


98  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

succession  ;  that  both  of  us  could  write  verse  in  various  measures,  and 
each  then  thought  that  the  ten-syllabled  couplet  of  Dryden  and  Pope 
was  the  perfection  of  poetic  form  ;  and  that  Fields  had  made  his  reputa- 
tion a  few  days  before  our  acquaintance  began  as  the  first  anniversary  poet 
of  the  association.  Before  a  large  audience  he  had  read  an  original  poem 
which  commanded  general  applause.  .  .  . 

One  of  the  most  notable  facts  in  the  lives  of  clerks  with  literary  tastes 
and  moderate  salaries  is  the  mysterious  way  in  which  they  contrive  to  col- 
lect books.  Among  the  members  of  the  Mercantile  Library  Association, 
Thomas  R.  Gould  (now  known  as  one  of  the  most  eminent  of  American 
sculptors),  Fields,  and  myself  had  what  we  called  » libraries  '  before  we  were 
twenty-one.  Gould  was  a  clerk  in  a  dry  goods  jobbing  house,  Fields  in  a 
bookstore,  I  in  a  broker's  office.  Fields's  collection  much  exceeded  Gould's 
and  mine,  for  he  had  in  his  room  two  or  three  hundred  volumes,  —  the  nu- 
cleus of  a  library  which  eventually  became  one  of  the  choicest  private  collec- 
tions of  books,  manuscripts,  and  autographs  in  the  city.  The  puzzle  of  the 
thing  was  that  we  could  not  decide  how  we  had  come  into  the  possession 
of  such  treasures.  We  had  begun  to  collect  before  we  were  in  our  teens, 
and  as  we  had  neither  stolen  nor  begged  we  concluded  that  '  our  libraries' 
represented  our  sacrifices.  In  the  evening,  after  the  day's  hard  work  was 
over,  Gould  and  I  drifted  by  instinct  to  Fields's  boarding-house  ;  and  what 
glorious  hilarity  we  always  found  in  his  room  !  He  was  never  dull,  never 
morose,  never  desponding.  Full  of  cheer  himself,  he  radiated  cheer  to  us. " 

Fields  became  a  publisher  at  twenty-three,  in  the  shop 
where  he  had  begun  as  boy,  with  his  promotion  from  clerk  to 
partner  in  the  firm  of  Ticknor,  Reed,  &  Fields.  This  firm  after- 
ward became  successively  Ticknor  &  Fields,  and  Fields,  Osgood, 
&  Co.,  until  Fields's  retirement  from  business  in  1870.  He  was 
editor  of  the  Atlantic  through  the  last  eight  years  of  his  busi- 
ness life  —  from  1862  to  1870. 

From  his  retirement  till  shortly  before  his  death,  he  devoted 
himself  chiefly  to  lecturing  on  literary  subjects  and  personages, 
in  various  cities  of  the  Northern  States.  The  publications  of  his 
own  works  were  during  this  period,  after  he  had  himself  ceased 
to  be  a  publisher.  His  widely  read  "Yesterdays  with  Authors  " 
was  the  first  of  the  series,  appearing  in  1871.  Then  followed, 
six  years  later,  his  volume  of  sketches,  "  Underbrush " ;  the 
next  year  "  The  Family  Library  of  British  Poetry,"  compiled 


THE   "OLD    TOWN  BY   THE   SEA."1  99 

in  association  with  Whipple  ;  and  in  1880  his  "  Ballads  and 
Other  Verses." 

The  distinctive  characteristic  of  Fields  as  a  publisher  was 
his  attitude  toward  literary  workers.  Whipple  says  that  from 
the  start  he  had  deliberately  formed  in  his  mind  an  ideal  of  a 
publisher  who  might  profit  by  men  of  letters,  and  at  the  same 
time  make  men  of  letters  profit  by  him.  Dr.  Holmes  remarked 
his  value  as  a  literary  counselor  and  friend.  Very  rarely  if 
ever,  he  has  said,  has  a  publisher  enjoyed  the  confidence  and 
friendship  of  so  wide  and  various  a  circle  of  authors.  Of 
Fields's  curtained  corner  in  the  old  Boston  bookstore,  George 
William  Curtis  once  discoursed  thus  charmingly  in  his  "  Easy 
Chair": 

"  Suddenly,  from  behind  the  green  curtain,  came  a  ripple  of 
laughter,  then  a  burst,  then  a  chorus  ;  gay  voices  of  two  or  three  or 
more,  but  always  of  one  —  the  one  who  sat  at  the  desk  and  whose  place 
was  behind  the  curtain,  the  literary  partner  of  the  house,  the  friend  of 
the  celebrated  circle  which  has  made  the  Boston  of  the  middle  of  this 
century  as  justly  renowned  as  the  Edinburgh  of  the  close  of  the  last 
century,  the  Edinburgh  that  saw  Burns,  but  did  not  know  him.  That 
curtained  corner  in  the  Corner  Bookstore  is  remembered  by  those  who 
knew  it  in  its  great  days,  as  Beaumont  recalled  the  revels  at  the  immortal 
tavern.  .  .  .  What  merry  peals  !  What  fun  and  chaff  and  story  ! 
Not  only  the  poet  brought  his  poem  there  still  glowing  from  his  heart,  but 
the  lecturer  came  from  tjie  train  with  his  freshest  touches  of  local  humor. 
It  was  the  exchange  of  wit,  the  Rialto  of  current  good  things,  the  hub  of 
the  hub.  ...  It  was  a  very  remarkable  group  of  men  — indeed,  it 
was  the  first  group  of  really  great  American  authors  —  which  familiarly 
frequented  the  corner  as  the  guests  of  Fields.  There  had  been  Bryant 
and  Irving  and  Cooper,  and  Halleck  and  Paulding  and  Willis  of  New 
York,  but  there  had  been  nothing  like  the  New  England  circle  which 
compelled  the  world  to  acknowledge  that  there  was  an  American  liter- 
ature." 

From  Fields  we  turned  to  Shillaber  (born  1814 ;  died  in 
Chelsea,  Mass.,  1890),  who  was  his  schoolmate.  "  Shillaber," 
I  related,  "  was  one  of  the  older  boys,  being  two  years  Fields's 
senior,  —  a  long  period  in  boyhood.  He  left  school  at  sixteen, 


100  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

and  became  a  journeyman  printer  in  one  of  the  local  newspaper 
offices.     At  eighteen  he  also  went  up  to  Boston  by  the  old 

*  Flying  Stage  Coach/  to  seek  his  fortune.      There  he  was  first 
employed   in  a  book-printing    shop,  where  were  printed   the 
popular    'Peter   Parley '    (Samuel    G.    Goodrich)     books,    and 
several  periodicals    of   note.       Among   them    were  the    Anti- 
Slavery  Annual  and   other  publications  of  Lydia  Maria  Child 
(born  in   Medford,  Mass.,    1802;     died   in    Wayland,   Mass., 
1880),   then,    as    Shillaber   has   described    her,    <  a  charming 
woman,  short  and  plump,  with  a   ruddy  and  very  expressive 
face,   and    eyes    sharply  comprehensive    of    everything   they 
rested  on.' 

"  In  this  printing  shop  he  became  familiar  with  the  ways  of 
pen-workers,  but  he  did  not  try  his  own  hand  till  many  years 
afterward.  It  was  in  the  late  forties,  when  connected  with  a 
Boston  paper,  that  he  made  his  first  venture  in  the  i  Sayings 
of  Mrs.  Partington/  with  no  thought  of  attempting  a  new 
line  in  humorous  literature.  How  it  came  about,  and  how  he 
came  to  utilize  Sydney  Smith's  Mrs.  Partington  as  the  vehicle 
for  his  droll  conceits  and  merry  quips,  he  has  told  in  his 

*  Experiences    During   Many   Years/  —  his    last    publication. 
'  The  heroic,  yet  futile  act  of  Mrs,  Partington,  as  per  Sydney 
Smith,  when  she  endeavored  to  sweep  back  the  ocean  which 
overflowed  her  kitchen  at  Sidmouth/  he  said,  was  ever  funny 
to  him,  and  her  name  was  present  in  his  mind  when  the  first 
( Saying'    was  conceived.       He   declared   that  f  there    was  no 
thought  beyond  that  passing  moment,  no  dream  of  subsequent 
effort,  nor  the  most  remote  idea  of  future  fame:  but  the  time 
was  favorable  for  something  of  the  kind,  the  ambition  of   a 
first  success  was  excited,  more  was  called   for,  and  soon  that 
which  was   so  singularly  and  unpretendingly  begun  became  a 
necessity  of  the  author,  grew  famous  in  a  small  way,  and  at- 
tained voluminous  proportions.' 

"  The  first  l  Saying '  was  suggested   by  a  remark  made  by 
one  of  the  printers  in  the  office  one  night,  when  the  news  of  an 


THE   "  OLD    TOWN  BY   THE  SEA."  101 

advance  in  breadstuffs  had  come  in  by  an  English  steamer. 
The  printer  said  that  he  '  didn't  care,  for  he  bought  his  flour  by 
the  pound.'  So  in  a  little  paragraph  in  the  next  morning's 
paper  '  Mrs.  Partington '  was  quoted  as  saying  that  *  it  made 
no  difference  to  her  whether  flour  was  dear  or  cheap,  as  she 
always  had  to  pay  just  as  much  for  a  half-dollar's  worth.' 
This  was  at  once  widely  copied,  and  the  author  was  encouraged 
to  try  another  '  Saying,'  which  he  did  with  like  success.  Then 


BENJAMIN    P.    SHILLABER     ("Mrs.   Partington"). 

more  Sayings  were  set  agoing  till,  '  like  the  whistle  of  the 
schoolboy  that  whistles  itself,  Mrs.  Partington,  as  she  ex- 
pressed it,  had  attained  a  "memento"  she  could  not  check.' 
In  a  little  while  the  genial  old  dame  with  her  antique  bonnet, 
her  '  ridicule,'  and  her  <  specs,'  became  a  household  delight 
throughout  the  land  where  newspapers  were  read.  *  Ike,'  her 
mischievous  grandson,  was  a  subsequent  creation,  as  a  foil  to 
her.  He  was  an  '  imitation  of  the  universal  "  human  boy " 
whose  pranks  served  to  point  a  moral.'  When,  in  1854,  the 


102  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

'  Sayings '  were  published  in  book  form,  under  the  title  of  e  Life 
and  Sayings  of  Mrs.  Partington,'  fifty  thousand  copies  were 
quickly  sold.  'Ike  and  his  Friends7  appeared  twenty-five 
years  after. 

"When  the  Partington  conceits  were  at  their  height 
Shillaber  edited  The  Carpet  Bag.  This  was  one  of 
the  earliest  American  « funny  papers/  started  in  1851,  and 
one  of  the  best.  But  it  was  the  '  unfortunate  offspring  of 
credulous  hope,'  and  '  despite  all  the  means  applied  for  its 
support,  it  died  happy  after  its  second  year.'  It  had  a  re- 
markable corps  of  contributors.  Among  them  were  Charles 
G.  Halpine  (part  of  the  time  an  assistant  editor),  the  '  Miles 
O'Reilly  '  of  the  Civil  War  period  ;  John  T.  Trowbridge,  then 
making  fame  as  a  story  writer  under  the  nom  de  plume  of 
'  Paul  Crey  ton ' ;  <  Artemus  Ward  '  (Charles  G.  Browne),  just 
beginning  his  career ;  <  Ethan  Spike '  (Matthew  F.  Whittier, 
the  poet's  brother)  ;  <M.  Quad,'  in  later  years  of  the  Detroit 
free  Press  ;  Sylvanus  Cobb,  Jr.,  the  prolific  writer  of  sensa- 
tional stories ;  and  Louise  Chandler  Moulton,  then  signing 
sketches  and  poems  as  '  Ellen  Louise.' 

"Shillaber  also  wrote  much  light  and  humorous  verse. 
His  cheery  life  closed  at  the  mellow  age  of  seventy-six." 

Resuming  our  walk  we  next  called  at  the  Public  Library, 
which  occupies  an  old  academy  building,  dating  from  1800,  and 
interesting  as  a  design  of  Charles  Bulfinch,  the  pioneer  Boston 
architect,  who  built  the  "  Bulfinch  Front "  of  the  State  House 
there,  the  old  part  of  the  Capitol  at  Washington,  and  other 
notable  structures.  Here  we  saw  a  portrait  of  James  T.  Fields 
in  young  manhood,  and  a  full-length  portrait  of  Celia  Thaxter 
in  her  maturity. 

We  could  here  take  a  car  on  Middle  Street,  which  would 
help  us  along  the  way  to  Little  Harbor,  the  seat  of  Governor 
Benning  Wentworth  and  the  scene  of  the  finish  of  Longfellow's 
"  Lady  Wentworth " ;  but  first  I  suggested  that  we  stroll 
among  some  of  the  old  mansions  of  the  neighborhood  which 


TttE  «O7,i>    TOWN  BY  THE  SEA." 

have  figured  in  literature.  So  working  around  to  Pleasant 
Street  we  came  upon  the  Governor  Langdon  house,  standing 
back  from  the  street,  shaded  by  great  oaks  and  elms,  and  ap- 
proached over  a  tesselated  marble  walk.  Here,  Aldrich  relates 
in  his  "  Old  Town  by  the  Sea "  from  which  we  have  quoted  so 
liberally,  the  governor  resided  from  1782  till  the  time  of  his 
death  in  1819.  During  this  period  many  an  illustrious  man 
passed  between  the  two  white  pillars  that  support  the  little 
balcony  over  the  front  door;  among  the  rest  Louis  Philippe 
and  his  brothers,  the  Dues  de  Montpensier  and  Beaujolais, 


DANIEL  WEBSTER    HOUSE,   PORTSMOUTH,   N.H. 

and  the  Marquis  de  Chastellux,  a  major-general  in  the  French 
army  under  the  Count  de  Rochambeau  whom  he  accompanied 
from  France  to  the  States  in  1780.  The  marquis,  in  recount- 
ing his  visits  about  the  town  while  the  fleet  was  lying  in  the 
harbor,  described  this  house  as  "  elegant  and  well  furnished, 
and  the  apartments  admirably  well  wainscotted."  Governor 
Langdon  he  found  "  a  handsome  man  and  of  noble  carriage  ;  " 
his  wife,  "  young,  fair  and  tolerably  handsome ; "  but,  singu- 
larly for  a  Frenchman,  "  he  conversed  less  with  her  than  with 
her  husband,"  for  the  soldierly  reason,  however,  that  he  was 
prejudiced  in  the  husband's  favor  "  from  knowing  that  he  had 


104  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

displayed  great  courage  and  patriotism  at  the  time  of  Bur- 
goyne's  expedition." 

Farther  along  on  Pleasant  Street  we  saw  the  Governor 
John  Wentworth  mansion.  He  was  the  last  Governor  Went- 
worth,  nephew  of  Governor  Benning  Wentworth,  whom  he 
succeeded  in  1767.  He  served  till  the, brink  of  the  Revolution, 
when  he  went  to  England.  He  was  afterward  governor  of 
Nova  Scotia,  from  1792  to  1800,  and  died  in  Halifax  in  1820. 
He  was  a  joyalist  of  the  "  most  florid  complexion.'7  In  1775, 
he  harbored  and  refused  to  surrender  one  John  Fenton,  an  ex- 
captain  in  the  British  army,  who  had  offended  the  Sons  of 
Liberty.  His  house  here  was  mobbed,  and  the  attacking  party 
planted  a  small  cannon  before  the  doorstep.  Then  pressing 
into  the  mansion,  they  did  considerable  damage,  marks  of 
which  are  still  shown  in  a  broken  marble  chimney  piece.  The 
family  escaped  by  the  back  yard  when  the  cannon  was  placed. 
That  it  wasn't  loaded  did  not  signify,  for  this  important  fact 
was  unknown  to  the  besieged  at  the  time.  The  great  deep 
hall  with  its  portraits,  the  old  parlor  and  its  adornments,  long 
retained  as  they  appeared  in  the  governor's  time,  have  been 
reproduced  in  story. 

Among  other  century  or  more  old  mansions  of  similar  inter- 
est which  grace  the  shaded  streets  is  the  Warner  house,  —  a 
house  of  brick  brought  out  from  Holland,  three  stories  high, 
with  gambrel  roof  and  luthern  windows,  and  interior  rich  in 
paneling  and  carvings.  We  are  told  that  a  wealthy  Scotch- 
man built  it  in  1718,  —  one  Captain  Archibald  Macpheadris, 
a  member  of  the  King's  council.  It  was  his  daughter  Mary, 
granddaughter  of  the  first  Governor  —  or  Lieut.-Governor  — 
John  Wentworth  (father  of  sixteen  children),  whom  Jonathan 
Warner  married.  Warner,  in  his  turn,  was  a  Provincial  coun- 
cilor and  served  till  the  Revolution. 

But  the  house  which  most  concerned  Percy  was  a  two-story 
gambrel-roofed  dwelling  on  Vaughan  Street;  for  this  was 
Daniel  Webster's  first  house  in  Portsmouth,  to  which  in  1808, 


THE   "  OLD    TOWN  BY   THE   SEA."  105 

he  brought  his  bride  to  begin  housekeeping.  "  She  was  Grace 
Fletcher,  the  daughter  of  a  minister  of  Hopkinton,  Massachu- 
setts," I  remarked,  "'whom  Webster  met  and  wooed  during  her 
visits  to  a  sister  of  hers  in  Salisbury,  New  Hampshire,  his 
birthplace.  He  was  then  twenty-six,  of  striking  appearance, 
at  the  opening  of  his  remarkable  career." 

It  is  a  cheerful  house,  its  aspect  changed  little  from  Web- 
ster's day.  It  has  the  same  broad  hall  running  through  the 
middle :  the  same  easy  stairway  with  fluted,  twisted,  and  flask- 
shaped  banisters  :  the  staircase  window  with  the  name  "  Sally  " 
cut  on  the  glass,  —  handiwork  of  Sally  Reserve,  a  daughter 
of  George  Reserve,  the  stamp  distributer  for  New  Hampshire 
under  the  "odious  Stamp  Act"  of  1765,  who  built  the  house:— 
the  front  chamber  wainscoted  to  the  top :  the  dining-room 
below,  enlarged  by  Webster  to  meet  the  demands  of  his  gener- 
ous hospitality.  Webster  lived  in  this  house,  Percy  was  told, 
till  his  removal  to  the  house  on  Pleasant  Street,  which  was 
burned  down  in  the  "great  fire"  of  1813.  He  lost  then  his 
library  and  all  the  furniture,  and  the  family  barely  escaped 
with  their  lives.  After  that  he  took  his  third  and  last  Ports- 
mouth house,  on  High  Street,  and  in  1816  he  moved  to  Boston. 

As  we  walked  away  we  talked  of  Webster's  ten  years  in 
Portsmouth,  of  his  speedy  leadership  in  his  profession,  his  pub- 
lic service,  his  associations,  his  friendship  especially  with  Jere- 
miah Mason,  the  great  exponent  of  the  common  law,  often  op- 
posed to  him  in  legal  cases,  but  always  with  friendship  unbroken. 
"  It  was  of  them,"  I  recalled,  "  that  George  S.  Hillard  in  after 
years  said :  <  Mason  was  a  great  lawyer,  but  Webster  was  a  great 
man  practicing  law/  It  was  from  Portsmouth  that  Webster 
was  first  sent  to  Congress ;  and  it  was  in  a  Portsmouth  paper 
—  the  Chronicle  —  that  his  career  as  a  political  writer  began." 

And  then  our  talk  drifted  to  other  legal  lights  of  Ports- 
mouth. To  Levi  Woodbury  among  them,  with  whom  Franklin 
Pierce,  afterward  President  Pierce,  was  a  law  student;  then  to 
that  successful  practitioner  of  an  earlier  time,  Jonathan 


106  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

Mitchell  Sewall,  writer  of  stirring  lyrics  sung  "  in  every  camp 
and  by  every  patriotic  fireside  "  during  the  Revolution.  He  it 
was  who  wrote  that  couplet  which  long  since  passed  into  famil- 
iar proverbial  use : 

"No  pent  up  Utica  contracts  your  powers, 
But  the  whole  boundless  continent  is  yours!" 

This  was  the  finish  of  an  epilogue  which  he  composed  to  Addi- 
son's  "  Tragedy  of  Cato  "  when  it  was  played  in  the  old  Bow 
Street  Theatre  of  Portsmouth,  in  1778,  the  concluding  lines 
running : 

"  Rise,  then,  my  countrymen  !     For  fight  prepare, 
Gird  on  your  swords,  and  fearless  rush  to  war  ! 
For  your  grieved  country  nobly  dare  to  die 
And  empty  all  your  veins  for  liberty. 
No  pent  up  Utica  contracts  your  powers, 
But  the  whole  boundless  continent  is  yours  ! " 

Now  began  our  short  journey  to  Little  Harbor.  We  boarded 
our  car  alongside  the  old  Parade  in  the  Square,  and  rode  around 
through  handsome  Middle  Street  and  beyond  to  open  country. 
At  the  farther  end  of  the  great  South  Bury  ing-ground,  thick 
with  tablets  and  monuments,  we  left  the  car  and  took  to 
the  road.  This  was  the  Little  Harbor  Road  of  historic  interest 
and  present  beauty.  It  was  a  charming,  winding,  shaded  walk 
of  about  a  mile  or  so  ending  abruptly  at  the  water-side.  And 
not  till  we  had  reached  the  end  did  we  get  a  glimpse  of  the 
Wentworth  "  Great  House,"  which  the  thick  foliage  of  the  road- 
side completely  veiled  from  view.  Then  we  saw  it  much  as 
pictured  in  "  Lady  Wentworth," — 

...   "a  pleasant  mansion,  an  abode 
Near  and  yet  hidden  from  the  great  high  road, 
Sequestered  among  trees,  a  noble  pile, 
Baronial  and  colonial  in  its  style  ; 
Gables  and  dormer-windows  everywhere, 
And  stacks  of  chimneys  rising  high  in  air,  — 
Pandsean  pipes,  on  which  all  winds  that  blew 
Made  mournful  music  the  whole  winter  through." 


THE   "OLD    TOWN  BY   THE   SEA."  107 

To  Percy's  eye  it  was  a  queer  confusion  of  architecture, 
with  its  square,  flat-roofed  main  part  of  two  stories,  lifted  above 
irregular  wings  which  joined  three  sides  of  a  square  opening 
upon  the  water.  He  was  informed  that  it  dates  from  the  middle 
of  the  eighteenth  century,  having  been  completed  in  1750.  It 
was  once  somewhat  larger  than  now,  a  portion  containing  seven 
rooms  having  been  removed  many  years  ago,  and  set  up  as  a  sep- 
arate house  on  the  Newcastle  side  of  the  harbor.  In  the  gov- 
ernor's day  it  had  fifty -two  rooms.  Chief  among  these  was  the 
Council  Chamber  for  the  transaction  of  business  of  state,  an 


THE    WENTWORTH    GREAT   HOUSE,    LITTLE    HARBOR. 

apartment  spacious  and  high-studded,  impressive  in  furnishings. 
At  its  entrance  were  stacks  for  the  twelve  muskets  of  the  gov- 
ernor's guard.  There  were  ante-rooms  for  the  entertainment  of 
the  provincial  worthies  frequently  assembled  here,  in  which 
many  a  rubber  of  whist  was  played.  Elsewhere ; 

"Within,  unwonted  splendors  met  the  eye, 
Panels,  and  floors  of  oak,  and  tapestry  ; 
Carved  chimney-pieces,  where  on  brazen  dogs 
Reveled  and  roared  the  Christmas  fires  of  logs; 


108  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

Doors  opening  into  darkness  unawares, 

Mysterious  passages,  and  flights  of  stairs ; 

And  on  the  walls,  in  heavy  gilded  frames, 

The  ancestral  Wentworths  with  Old-Scripture  names." 

The  great  cellar  beneath  the  main  part,  into  which  Percy 
peeped,  was  originally  arranged  for  the  stabling  of  a  troop  of 
thirty  horse  in  times  of  danger. 

To  this  pleasant  mansion  — 

u where  the  great  man  dwelt, 

A  widower  and  childless, " 

Martha  Hilton  had  come,  and  had  lived  to  young  womanhood, 
as  a  maid  of  all  work  — 

"A  servant  who  made  service  seem  divine  ! '? 

"Here  the  romance  culminated,  with  Martha  Hilton's  mar- 
riage to  the  governor,  on  his  sixtieth  birthday,  when  — 


u  '  He  gave  a  splendid  banquet,  served  on  plate 
Such  as  became  the  Governor  of  the  State, 
Who  represented  England  and  the  King, 
And  was  magnificent  in  everything.' 

"  She  made  him  a  good  wife,  albeit  having  a  lively  sense  of 
the  dignity  of  her  station,  as  witness  this  delicious  tale  of  the 
dropping  of  her  ring  upon  the  floor  a  few  days  after  her  mar- 
riage. '  She  languidly  ordered  her  servant  to  pick  it  up,  but  the 
servant,  who  appears  to  have  had  a  fine  sense  of  humor,  grew 
suddenly  near-sighted,  and  was  unable  to  find  it  until  Lady 
Wentworth  stooped  and  placed  her  ladyship's  finger  upon  it/ 

"  When  the  gouty  governor  died,  in  1770,  he  left  her  his 
entire  estate.  She  married  again,  after  a  decorous  interval, 
another  Wentworth,  but  not  of  the  Portsmouth  branch  of  the 
family.  He  was  Michael  Wentworth,  a  retired  colonel  of  the 


THE   "OLD    TOWN  BY   THE  SEA."  109 

British  army.  He  lived  a  life  of  conviviality,  that  shortly 
dissipated  her  fortune,  and  at  length  died  in  New  York,  by  his 
own  hand.  His  last  words  were  '  I  have  had  my  cake  and  ate 
it,'  which  we  must  agree  with  Aldrich  shows  that  within  his 
own  modest  limitations,  he  was  a  philosopher. 

"  Longfellow  wrote  his  poem  without  seeing  the  mansion. 
His  first  view  of  it  was  a  few  days  after  the  completion  of  the 
tale,  as  appears  by  this  note  in  his  diary : 

'June  1  [1871].  Went  with  Fields  to  Portsmouth  to  see  old  houses. 
.  .  .  First,  lunch  ;  then  to  Little  Harbor  to  see  the  Wentworth  house, 
—  a  quaint,  irregular  pile  of  buildings  hidden  from  the  road  by  rising 
ground,  though  close  upon  it,  with  lilac  hedges,  and  looking  seaward  ; 
not  unlike  my  description  of  it.  We  went  all  over  the  lower  part  of  the 
house,  and  saw  the  present  owner,  a  sprightly  old  lady  of  ninety,  and 
her  daughter.' 

"  He  also  wrote  to  a  friend,  after  this  visit,  '  I  found  it  necessary 
to  change  only  a  single  line  [of  the  poem],  —  which  was  lucky. ' 

"  Subsequently  the  property  fell  into  excellent  hands,  be- 
coming the  summer  seat  of  John  T.  Coolidge,  jr.,  son-in-law  of 
the  historian  Parkman.  Here  Parkman  spent  some  time  each 
summer  during  his  latter  years.  While  here  he  wrote  parts  of 
his  <  Montcalm  and  Wolfe,7  and  finished  '  A  Half  Century  of 
Conflict.' " 

Hailing  a  skipper  cruising  about  the  little  harbor,  we  char- 
tered him  to  take  us  across  to  the  Newcastle  side.  And  by 
way  of  this  quaint  village  we  returned  to  town. 

A  trip  to  Kittery-side,  by  ferry  across  the  Piscataqua,  and 
a  visit  there  to  the  ancient  Pepperell  house  with  the  tomb  of 
the  knight  in  the  orchard,  which  we  reached  by  trolley-car,  rush- 
ing through  a  lovely  winding  rural  road,  completed  our  round 
of  Portsmouth  landmarks. 

Then  preferring  a  yacht  to  the  steamboat,  we  embarked  on 
a  miniature  clipper  ship,  and  made  an  afternoon  voyage  to  the 
Isles  of  Shoals,  nine  miles  out  from  Portsmouth  Light. 


VIII. 

AMONG    THE    ISLES    OF    SHOALS. 

Their  situation  in  the  open  sea.  —  History  and  traditions.  —  Hawthorne's 
note  on  their  weird  shapes. — Celia  Thaxter's  sketch. — Lowell's 
"  Pictures  from  Appledore."  —  Legends  of  the  Isles.  —  The  Old  White 
Island  lighthouse. — Celia  Thaxter's  girlhood  there. — Her  marriage 
and  literary  development.  —  Her  later  cottage  home  on  Appledore.  -,- 
Resort  of  literary  folk.  —  Her  island  grave. 

ON  the  sail  over  I  regaled  Percy  with  tales  of  the  Shoals, 
their  history  and  traditions,  which  have  come  out  through  the 
association  of  literary  folk  with  them  ;  for  they  were  favorite 
summering  places  with  poets,  authors,  and  artists  through  the 
half  century  from  1840  or  thereabouts,  especially  during  the 
mature  life  of  their  own  poet  —  Celia  Thaxter  (born  1835 ; 
died  1894). 

First,  as  to  their  situation.  I  showed  by  a  map  how  they 
lie,  a  cluster  of  eight  rocky  elevations,  in  the  open  sea;  six  of 
them  —  Appledore,  Haley's  or  "  Smutty  Nose,"  Malaga,  Star, 
Cedar,  and  Londoner's  —  in  a  group  forming  a  crescent  nearly 
a  mile  in  width  —  with  Duck  Island  two  miles  off  to  the  north- 
east from  Appledore,  and  White  Island  nearly  a  mile  southwest 
from  Star.  Haley's  we  saw  lies  closest  to  Appledore,  the 
largest  of  the  group,  the  two  almost  united  by  a  reef  bare 
at  low  tide ;  while  Cedar  and  Malaga  are  connected  with 
Haley's  at  low  tide.  Star  is  a  quarter  of  a  mile  southeast  from 
Haley's.  Duck,  with  its  ledges  thrust  out  on  all  sides  be- 
neath the  water,  one  extending  half  a  mile  to  the  northwest, 
is  the  most  dangerous  of  all  these  isles.  White  is  the  most 
picturesque. 

110 


AMONG    THE  ISLES   OF  SHOALS. 


Ill 


"  On  Star  Island, "  I  went  on,  "  are  seen  the  remnants  of 
the  old  town  of  the  cluster,  —  Gosport,  —  now7  supplanted  by  a 
summer  hotel ;  a  little  century -old  stone  church  perched  on  the 
highest  rock ;  and  on  another,  a  monument  to  Captain  John 


CELIA  THAXTER    IN    HER   GARDEN. 


Smith.  For  this  picturesque  explorer  is  the  accredited  dis- 
coverer of  the  Isles  in  1614;  although  De  Monts  saw  them 
nine  years  before,  Pring  probably  sighted  them  two  years 
before  De  Mouts,  while  Christopher  Leavitt  first  set  foot 


112  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

upon  them,  —  in  1623.  On  Appledore  rises  a  more  ancient 
monument,  —  a  rude  cairn,  which  tradition  insists,  as  tradition 
sometimes  will  in  defiance  of  seeming  fact,  that  Smith  himself, 
or  his  men,  set  up ;  and  here  are  the  Laightons'  hostelry, 
the  '  Appledore/  and  the  cottage  with  its  blooming  garden, 
where  Celia  Laighton  Thaxter  lived.  On  White  is  the  light- 
house where  her  girlhood  was  spent.  Appledore  was  earlier 
called  'Hog,'  because  of  its  fancied  resemblance  to  a  huge 
hog's  back  rising  from  the  water. 

"  Haley's  was  dubbed  '  Smutty-nose '  by  passing  sailors,  from 
its  long,  black  rock-point  upon  which  many  a  brave  ship  has 
met  death.  It  got  its  l  regular  name '  from  Samuel  Haley,  who 
lived  upon  it  for  many  years,  till  his  death  in  1811,  at  eighty- 
four.  He  was  the  progenitor  of  a  sterKng  family.  The 
epitaph  over  his  island  grave  records  that  he  was  a  man  '  of 
great  ingenuity,  industry,  honor,  and  honesty,  true  to  his 
country,  .  .  .  who  did  a  great  public  good  in  building  a  dock 
and  receiving  into  his  enclosure  many  a  poor  distressed  sea- 
man and  fisherman  in  distress  of  weather.'  His  ingenuity  and 
industry  were  displayed  in  various  other  ways.  He  erected 
salt-works  for  making  salt  to  cure  fish  ;  he  built  a  rope-walk ; 
he  set  up  windmills  for  grinding  his  own  corn  and  wheat ;  all 
these  to  render  himself  as  far  as  possible  independent  of  the 
mainland.  Celia  Thaxter  has  told  of  his  custom  every  night 
to  place  in  his  bedroom  window,  high  up  and  facing  the  south- 
east, a  light  which  burned  till  daybreak,  as  a  beacon  for 
sailors,  —  before,  probably,  the  lighthouse  on  White  Island  was 
erected.  And  she  thus  tells  the  story  of  the  wreck  of  the 
great  ship  *  Sagunto '  from  Spain,  on  a  tempestuous  January 
night,  when  the  vessel  crashed  full  upon  the  fatal  southeast 
point,  in  sight  of  the  tiny  spark  that  burned  peacefully  in  that 
quiet  chamber : 

Her  costly  timbers  of  mahogany  and  cedarwood  were  splintered  on  the 
sharp  teeth  of  those  inexorable  rocks  ;  her  cargo  of  dried  fruits  and  nuts 
and  bales  of  broadcloth  and  gold  and  silver,  was  tossed  about  the  shore, 


AMONG    THE  ISLES   OF  SHOALS.  113 

and  part  of  her  crew  were  thrown  alive  upon  it.  Some  of  them  saw  the 
light,  and  crawled  toward  it  benumbed  with  cold  and  spent  with  fatigue 
and  terror.  The  roaring  of  the  storm  bore  away  their  faint  cries  of  dis- 
tress ;  the  old  man  slept  on  quietly,  with  his  family  about  him,  sheltered, 
safe  ;  while  a  stone5 s-throw  from  his  door  these  sailors  strove  and  agonized 
to  reach  that  friendly  light.  Two  of  them  gained  the  stone-wall  in  front 
of  the  house,  but  their  ebbing  strength  would  not  allow  them  to  climb 
over  ;  they  threw  themselves  upon  it,  and  perished  miserably,  with  safety, 
warmth,  and  comfort  so  close  at  hand  !  In  the  morning,  when  the  tumult 
was  somewhat  hushed,  and  underneath  the  sullen  sky  rolled  the  more  sullen 
sea  in  long,  deliberate  waves,  the  old  man  looked  out  into  the  early  light 
across  the  waste  of  snow,  and  on  the  wall  lay  —  something  that  broke  the 
familiar  outline,  though  all  was  smooth  with  the  pure,  soft  snow.  He  must 
put  on  coat  and  cap,  and  go  and  find  out  what  this  strange  thing  might 
be.  Ah  !  that  was  a  sight  for  his  pitying  eyes  under  the  cold  and  leaden 
light  of  that  unrelenting  morning  !  He  summoned  his  sons  and  his  men. 
Quickly  the  alarm  was  given,  and  there  was  confusion  and  excitement  as 
the  islanders,  hurriedly  gathering,  tried  if  it  were  possible  yet  to  save 
some  life  amid  the  wreck.  But  it  was  too  late  ;  every  soul  was  lost. 
Fourteen  bodies  were  found  at  that  time,  strewn  all  the  way  between  the 
wall  and  that  southeast  point  where  the  vessel  had  gone  to  pieces.  The 
following  summer  the  skeleton  of  another  was  discovered  among  some 
bushes  near  the  shore.  .  .  .  Fourteen  shallow  graves  were  quarried  for 
the  unknown  in  the  iron  earth,  and  there  they  lie,  with  him  who  buried 
them  a  little  above  in  the  same  grassy  slope. 

"  This  tragedy  of  the  sea  is  the  subject  of  Mrs.  Thaxter's 
familiar  poem,  <  The  Spaniards'  Graves/  with  its  fine  lines : 

4  O  Sailors,  did  sweet  eyes  look  after  you 

The  day  you  sailed  away  from  sunny  Spain  ? 
Bright  eyes  that  followed  fading  ship  and  crew, 
Melting  in  tender  rain  ? 

Did  no  one  dream  of  that  drear  night  to  be, 

Wild  with  the  wind,  fierce  with  the  stinging  snow, 

When  on  yon  granite  point  that  frets  the  sea, 
The  ship  met  her  death-blow  ? 

Fifty  long  years  ago  these  sailors  died  : 

(None  know  how  many  sleep  beneath  the  waves : ) 

Fourteen  gray  head-stones,  rising  side  by  side, 
Point  out  their  nameless  graves,  — 


114  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

Lonely,  unknown,  deserted,  but  for  me, 

And  the  wild  birds  that  flit  with  mournful  cry, 

And  sadder  winds,  and  voices  of  the  sea 
That  moans  perpetually. 

O  Spanish  women,  over  the  far  seas, 
'Could  I  but  show  you  where  your  dead  repose, 

Could  I  send  tidings  on  this  northern  breeze 
That  strong  and  steady  blows  ! 

Dear  dark-eyed  sisters,  you  remember  yet 

These  you  have  lost,  but  you  can  never  know 

One  stands  at  their  bleak  graves  whose  eyes  are  wet 
With  thinking  of  your  woe  ! ' 

"  The  Shoals  lie  in  two  states,  the  dividing  line  between  New 
Hampshire  and  Maine  passing  between  them.  Appledore/ 
Duck,  and  Haley's  are  on  the  Maine  side ;  the  others  belong 
to  New  Hampshire.  The  cluster  comprise  in  all  something 
over  six  hundred  acres.  Appledore  is  a  mile  long ;  Star,  three- 
quarters  of  a  mile  ;  and  White,  about  the  same  extent.  Cedar 
is  the  smallest,  including  about  an  acre.  They  got  their  name 
of  the  ( Isles  of  Shoals '  upon  the  dropping  of  that  of  Smith's 
Islands,  which  they  bore  on  Captain  John's  map,  not  from 
their  rugged  reefs  which  run  out  beneath  the  water,  but  from 
the  shoaling,  or  schooling,  of  fish  about  them. 

11  Of  their  weird  shapes  Hawthorne  wrote  in  his  journal 
upon  his  first  visit  to  them  in  1852  (and  I  turned  to  my  note- 
book for  the  extract)  : 

'  It  is  quite  impossible  to  give  an  idea  of  these  rocky  shores,  —  how  con- 
fusedly they  are  tossed  together,  lying  in  all  directions  ;  what  solid  ledges, 
what  great  fragments  thrown  out  from  the  rest.  Often  the  rocks  are  bro- 
ken, square  and  angular,  so  as  to  form  a  kind  of  staircase  ;  though,  for  the 
most  part,  such  as  would  require  a  giant  stride  to  ascend  them.  Sometimes 
a  black  trap-rock  runs  through  the  bed  of  granite  ;  sometimes  the  sea  has 
eaten  this  way,  leaving  a  long,  irregular  fissure.  In  some  places,  owing  to 
the  same  cause  perhaps,  there  is  a  great  hollow  place  excavated  into  the 
ledge,  and  forming  a  harbor,  into  which  the  sea  flows  ;  and  while  there  is 


AMONG    THE  ISLES    OF  SHOALS.  115 

foam  and  fury  at  the  entrance,  it  is  comparatively  calm  within.  Some 
parts  of  the  crag  are  as  much  as  fifty  feet  of  perpendicular  height,  down 
which  you  look  over  a  bare  and  smooth  descent,  at  the  base  of  which  is  a 
shaggy  margin  of  sea-weed.  But  it  is  vain  to  try  to  express  this  confusion. 
As  much  as  anything  else,  it  seems  as  if  some  of  the  massive  materials  of 
the  world  remained  superfluous  after  the  Creator  had  finished,  and  were 
carelessly  thrown  down  here,  where  the  millionth  part  of  them  emerge 
from  the  sea,  and  in  the  course  of  thousands  of  years  have  become  par- 
tially bestrewn  with  a  little  soil.'  : 

"  Celia  Thaxter  has  thus  pictured  them  with  a  poetic  touch ; 

*  Swept  by  every  wind  that  blows,  and  beaten  by  the  bitter  brine  for 
unknown  ages,  well  may  the  Isles  of  Shoals  be  barren,  bleak,  and  bare. 
.  .  .  The  incessant  influences  of  wind  and  sun,  rain,  snow,  frost,  and 
spray,  have  so  bleached  the  tips  of  the  rocks  that  they  look  hoary  as  if 
with  age,  though  in  the  summer  time  a  gracious  greenness  of  vegetation 
breaks  here  and  there  the  stern  outlines,  and  softens  somewhat  their 
rugged  aspect.  Yet  so  forbidding  are  their  shores  it  seems  scarcely  worth 


WHITE    ISLAND    LIGHT.  , 

while  to  land  upon  them  —  mere  heaps  of  tumbling  granite  in  the  wide 
and  lonely  sea  —  when  all  the  smiling  *  sapphire-spangled  marriage-ring  of 
the  land  '  lies  ready  to  woo  the  voyager  back  again,  and  welcome  his  re- 
turning prow  with  pleasant  sights  and  sounds  and  scents  that  the  wild 
wastes  of  water  never  know.  But  to  the  human  creature  who  has  eyes 
that  will  see  and  ears  that  will  hear,  nature  appeals  with  such  a  novel 
charm,  that  the  luxurious  beauty  of  the  land  is  half  forgotten  before  one 
is  aware.  .  .  .  The  wonderful  sound  of  the  sea  dulls  the  memory  of  all 


116  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

past  impressions  and  seems  to  fulfill  and  satisfy  all  present  needs.  .  .  . 
Each  island  has  its  peculiar  characteristics.  .  .  .  Each  presents  its  bold- 
est shore  to  the  east,  to  breast  the  whole  force  of  the  Atlantic  which  every 
year  assails  the  iron  cliffs  and  headlands  with  the  same  ponderous  fury, 
yet  leaves  upon  them  so  little  trace  of  its  immense  power.  .  .  .  Each 
island,  every  isolated  rock  has  its  own  peculiar  rote,  and  ears  made  deli- 
cate by  listening  in  great  and  frequent  peril,  can  distinguish  the  bearings 
of  each  in  a  dense  fog.  The  threatening  speech  of  Duck  Island's  ledges, 
the  swing  of  the  wave  over  Half- Way  Rock,  the  touch  of  the  ripple  on  the 
beach  at  Londoner's,  the  long  and  lazy  breaker  that  is  forever  rolling  below 
the  lighthouse  on  White  Island,  —  all  are  familiar  and  distinct,  and  indi- 
cate to  the  islander  his  whereabouts  almost  as  clearly  as  if  the  sun  shone 
brightly  and  no  shrouding  mist  were  striving  to  mock  and  mislead  him.' 

"And  Lowell,  in  his  ' Pictures  from  Appledore'  thus  de- 
scribes this  isle,  chiefest  in  interest  to  us  because  of  its  literary 
associations : 

'  A  heap  of  bare  and  splintery  crags 
Tumbled  about  by  lightning  and  frost, 
With  rifts  and  chasms  and  storm-bleached  jags, 
That  wait  and  growl  for  a  ship  to  be  lost ; 


Ribs  of  rock  that  seaward  jut, 

Granite  shoulders  and  boulders  and  snags, 

Round  which,  though  the  winds  in  heaven  be  shut, 

The  nightmared  ocean  murmurs  and  yearns, 

Welters,  and  swashes,  and  tosses,  and  turns, 

And  the  dreary  black  seaweed  lolls  and  wags  ; 

Only  rock  from  shore  to  shore, 

Only  a  moan  through  the  bleak  clefts  blown, 

With  sobs  in  the  rifts  where  the  coarse  kelp  shifts, 

Falling  and  lifting,  tossing  and  drifting, 

And  under  all  a  deep,  dull  roar, 

Dying  and  swelling,  forevermore, — 

Rock  and  moan  and  roar  alone, 

And  the  dread  of  some  nameless  thing  unknown, 

These  make  Appledore. 

These  make  Appledore  by  night. 


AMONG    THE  ISLES   OF  SHOALS.  117 

All  this  you  would  scarcely  comprehend, 

Should  you  see  the  isle  on  a  sunny  day ; 

Then  it  is  simple  enough  in  its  way,  — 

Two  rocky  bulges,  one  at  each  end, 

With  a  smaller  bulge  and  a  hollow  between ; 

Patches  of  whortleberry  and  bay  ; 

Accidents  of  open  green, 

Sprinkled  with  loose  slabs  square  and  gray, 

Like  graveyards  for  ages  deserted ;  a  few 

Unsocial  thistles  ;  an  elder  or  two, 

Foamed  over  with  blossoms  white  as  spray  ; 

And  on  the  whole  island  never  a  tree 

Save  a  score  of  sumachs,  high  as  your  knee, 

That  crouch  in  hollows  where  they  may, 

(The  cellars  where  once  stood  a  village,  men  say,) 

Huddling  for  warmth,  and  never  grew 

Tall  enough  for  a  peep  at  the  sea; 

A  general  dazzle  of  open  blue  ; 

A  breeze  always  blowing  and  playing  rat-tat 

With  the  bow  of  the  ribbon  round  your  hat ; 

A  medrick  that  makes  you  look  overhead 
With  short,  sharp  scream,  as  he  sights  his  prey, 
And,  dropping  straight  and  swift  as  lead, 
Splits  the  water  with  sudden  thud ;  — 
This  is  Appledore  by  day/ 

"  So  early  as  1623,  the  year  that  Leavitt  landed,  first  of  all 
Europeans,  upon  them,  —  only  three  years  after  the  coming  of 
the  Pilgrims  to  Plymouth,  —  the  Isles  were  occupied  as  a  fishing 
station  ;  and  from  that  time  to  the  Revolutionary  period  the 
fisheries  were  pursued  as  an  active  industry.  During  the  thriv- 
ing days  of  piracy  many  a  buccaneer  frequented  these  isles, 
and  tales  are  told  of  immense  treasure  hidden  in  their  rocky 
depths.  They  are  numbered  among  the  countless  hiding-places 
of  Kidd's  wealth,  and  they  harbor  a  pirate-ghost,  —  '  Old  Bab/ 
one  of  Kidd's  men.  His  ghostship  is  of  a  <  pale  and  very 
dreadful '  countenance,  clad  in  a  <  coarse,  striped  butcher's  frock, 
with  a  leather  belt  to  which  is  attached  a  sheath  containing  a 


118 


LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 


ghostly  knife,  sharp  and  glittering,  which  it  is  his  delight  to 
brandish  in  the  face  of  terrified  humanity.7  And  there  is  a 
sweeter  ghost,  a  lovely  woman  *  fair  as  a  lily,'  wrapped  closely 
in  a  dark  sea-cloak,  with  a  profusion  of  light  hair  falling  loosely 
over  her  shoulders,  who  stands  on  the  cliffs  fixing  her  large  and 
melancholy  eyes  on  the  limitless  sea,  as  she  moans,  <  He  will 
come  back !  He  will  come  back/  As  the  legend  runs,  the 
sweet  maid  was  left  here  by  her  pirate  lover,  a  companion  of 
the  notorious  <  Blackboard/  to  guard  his  buried  treasure  while 


CELIA   THAXTER'S    GRAVE. 

he  and  '  Blackboard '  sailed  after  a  strange  ship  for  more  plun- 
der. She  was  made  to  swear  '  with  horrible  rites  that  till  his 
return,  if  it  were  not  till  the  day  of  judgment,  she  would  guard 
it  from  the  search  of  all  mortals.'  Then  off  the  islands  a  fight 
ensued  between  the  pirate  ship  and  the  strange  sail,  which 
proved  to  be  a  cruiser  in  search  of  the  freebooters.  After  a  des- 
perate battle  the  pirate  ship  was  blown  up  and  all  of  her  gang 
perished.  But  the  maiden  kept  her  oath. 


AMONG    THE  ISLES   OF  SHOALS.  119 

"  For  more  than  a  century  before  the  Revolution  the  Shoals 
were  fairly  populous,  considering  their  size  and  distance  from 
the  mainland,  having  from  three  hundred  to  six  hundred  inhab- 
itants. Within  the  first  half  of  the  eighteenth  century  vessels 
were  annually  loaded  here  with  fish  for  Balboa,  in  Spain. 
About  the  year  1660  there  were  on  Appledore  (then  Hog  Island) 
thirty  or  forty  families,  who,  says  an  old  chronicler,  were  '  gen- 
erally good  livers.'  In  so  prosperous  a  state  were  the  islands 
at  that  period,  this  same  chronicler  avers,  that  '  gentlemen  from 
some  of  the  principal  towns  on  the  seacoast  sent  their  sons  here 
for  literary  instruction.'  This  was  evidently  an  embellishment 
of  the  simpler  record  that  children  were  sent  here  from  the 
mainland  to  school  —  probably  to  the  good  island  minister 
John  Brock,  —  in  order  that  they  might  be  safe  from  the  In- 
dians then  harassing  the  settlements.  A  little  later  the  Hog 
islanders  moved  over  to  Star,  partly  through  fear  of  the  Indians 
who  made  Duck  Island  a  rendezvous. 

"  Early  in  the  Revolution  when  the  Islands  were  at  the 
mercy  of  the  enemy  and  affording  it  sustenance  and  recruits, 
the  Provincial  government  ordered  the  inhabitants  to  quit 
them,  —  which  the  greater  part  did.  They  scattered  among 
the  seaport  towns  along  the  coast,  and  most  of  them  never 
returned.  On  Star  Island  in  1775  the  royal  Governor  Went- 
worth  performed  his  last  official  act  when  he  prorogued  the 
last  assembly  of  the  province  of  New  Hampshire. 

"The  few  among  the  islanders  who  did  not  join  the  exodus 
were  mostly  the  more  debased,  and  the  Isles  speedily  sank  into 
a  deplorable  condition.  From  the  war  period  till  between 
1820  and  1830,  their  inhabitants  mostly  lived  in  a  wretched 
condition  of  ignorance  and  vice.  We  have  Celia  Thaxter's 
word  for  it  that  in  no  place  of  the  size  of  the  group  has  there 
been  a  greater  absorption  of  '  rum '  since  the  world  was  made. 
A  young  theological  student  there  in  1822  on  missionary  work 
intent,  recorded  in  his  journal  numerous  shocking  instances 
of  what  he  termed  the  ( Heaven-daring  impieties  '  of  the  island- 


120  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

ers.  But  in  time  things  slowly  mended,  mainly  through  the 
efforts  of  ministers  sent  down  by  that  zealous  Puritan  organiza- 
tion with  the  ponderous  name  —  the  "  Society  for  Propagating 
the  Gospel  Among  Indians  and  Others  in  North  America ; " 
and  through  the  work  of  courageous  women  who  came  over 
from  the  mainland  to  live  among  the  people,  to  teach  their 
school  and  reclaim  their  children. 

"When  the  elder  Laighton,  Celia  Thaxter's  father,  took 
charge  of  the  White  Island  lighthouse,  and  moved  his  family 
from  Portsmouth  to  the  little  stone  cottage  there,  the  islands 
were  yet  sparsely  settled,  mostly  by  fishermen's  families. 
That  was  in  1839,  when  Celia  was  scarcely  five  years  old.  Of 
the. home  on  this  remote  island  she  has  given  us  a  fascinating 
picture: 

4 ' '  It  was  at  sunset  in  autumn  that  we  were  set  ashore  on  that  loneliest, 
lovely  rock,  where  the  lighthouse  looked  down  on  us  like  some  tall,  black- 
capped  giant,  and  filled  me  with  awe  and  wonder.  At  its  base  a  few  goats 
were  grouped  on  the  rock,  standing  out  dark  against  the  red  sky  as  I 
looked  up  at  them.  The  stars  began  to  twinkle ;  the  wind  blew  cold, 
charged  with  the  sea's  sweetness ;  the  sound  of  many  waters  half  bewil- 
dered me.  Some  one  began  to  light  the  lamps  in  the  tower.  Rich  red  and 
golden,  they  swung  round  in  mid-air.  Everything  was  strange  and  fas- 
cinating and  new.  We  entered  the  quaint  little  old  stone  cottage  that  was 
for  six  years  our  home.  How  curious  it  seemed,  with  its  low,  white- 
washed ceiling  and  deep  window-seats,  showing  the  great  thickness  of  the 
walls  made  to  withstand  the  breakers,  with  whose  force  we  soon  grew 
acquainted ! 

u  '  A  blissful  home  the  little  house  became  to  the  children  who  entered  it 
that  quiet  evening  and  slept  for  the  first  time  lulled  by  the  murmur  of  the 
encircling  sea.  I  do  not  think  a  happier  triad  ever  existed  than  we  were, 
living  in  that  profound  isolation.  It  takes  so  little  to  make  a  healthy 
child  happy;  and  we  never  wearied  of  our  resources.  True,  the  winters 
seemed  as  long  as  a  whole  year  to  our  little  minds,  but  they  were  pleasant, 
nevertheless.  Into  the  deep  window-seats  we  climbed,  and  with  pennies 
(for  which  we  had  no  other  use)  made  round  holes  in  the  thick  frost, 
breathing  on  them  till  they  were  warm,  and  peeped  out  at  the  bright, 
fierce,  windy  weather,  watching  the  vessels  scudding  over  the  intensely 
dark  blue  sea,  all  "  featherwhite  "  where  the  short  waves  broke  hissing  in 


AMONG    THE  ISLES   OF  SHOALS.  121 

the  cold,  and  the  seafowl  soaring  aloft  or  tossing  on  the  water ;  or,  in 
calmer  days,  we  saw  how  the  stealthy  Star-Islander  paddled  among  the 
ledges,  or  lay  for  hours  stretched  on  the  wet  sea-weed,  with  his  gun, 
watching  for  wild-fowl.  Sometimes  the  round  head  of  a  seal  moved 
about  among  the  kelp-covered  rocks.  .  .  .  We  were  forced  to  lay  in 
stores  of  all  sorts  in  the  autumn,  as  if  we  were  fitting  out  a  ship  for  an 
Arctic  expedition.  The  lower  story  of  the  lighthouse  was  hung  with 
mutton  and  beef,  and  the  store-room  packed  with  provisions. 

"  '  In  the  long,  covered  walk  that  bridged  the  gorge  between  the  light- 
house and  the  house,  we  played  in  stormy  days  ;  and  every  evening  it  was  a 
fresh  excitement  to  watch  the  lighting  of  the  lamps,  and  think  how  far  the 
lighthouse  sent  its  rays,  and  how  many  hearts  it  gladdened  with  assurance 
of  safety.  As  I  grew  older  I  was  allowed  to  kindle  the  lamps  sometimes 
myself.  That  was  indeed  a  pleasure.  .  .  .  We  hardly  saw  a  human 
face  beside  our  own  all  winter  ;  but  with  the  spring  came  manifold  life  to 
our  lonely  dwelling, — human  life  among  ether  forms.  Our  neighbors 
from  Star  rowed  across ;  the  pilot  boat  from  Portsmouth  steered  over  and 
brought  us  letters,  newspapers,  magazines,  and  told  us  the  news  of 
months. 

** '  Once  or  twice  every  year  came  the  black,  lumbering  old  "  oil- 
schooner"  that  brought  supplies  for  the  lighthouse,  and  the  inspector,  who 
gravely  examined  everything,  to  see  if  all  was  in  order.  He  left  stacks  of 
clear  red  and  white  glass  chimneys  for  the  lamps,  and  several  doeskins  for 
polishing  the  great  silver-lined  copper  reflectors,  large  bundles  of  wicks, 
and  various  pairs  of  scissors  for  trimming  them,  heavy  black  casks  of  ill- 
perfumed  whale  oil,  and  other  things  which  were  all  stowed  in  the  round, 
dimly-lighted  rooms  of  the  tower.  Very  awe-struck,  we  children  always 
crept  into  corners,  and  whispered  and  watched  the  intruders  till  they  em- 
barked in  their  ancient,  clumsy  vessel,  and,  hoisting  their  dark,  weather- 
stained  sails,  bore  slowly  away  again." 

"  Celia  Thaxter  has  sung  the  old  white  lighthouse  in  t  The 
Wreck  of  the  Pocahontas  '  beginning  : 

'I  lit  the  lamps  in  the  lighthouse  tower, 

For  the  sun  dropped  down  and  the  day  was  dead; 
They  shone  like  a  glorious  clustered  flower,  — 
Ten  golden  and  five  red.' 

That  lighthouse  was  removed  many  years  ago  and  a  brick 
tower  built  in  its  place,  and  the  '  ten  golden  and  five  red ' 


122  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

lamps  were  superseded  by  the  Fresnel's  triple  burner  enclosed 
in  its  case  of  prisms,  - —  less  picturesque,  but  more  powerful. 

"Thomas  Laighton's  coming  to  the  Shoals  as  lighthouse 
keeper  they  say,  was  the  result  of  political  disappointment. 
He  was  the  son  of  a  spar-maker  in  Portsmouth.  His  father's 
trade  was  not  congenial  to  him  as  a  vocation,  and  he  took  to 
journalism  and  politics.  He  wrote  for  the  New  Hampshire 
Gazette,  and  was  postmaster  of  Portsmouth  under  Jackson's 
administration.  Afterward  came  the  disappointment  in  his 
hope  of  a  public  career,  and  taking  the  island-lighthouse 
appointment,  he  resolved  never  to  return  to  the  mainland. 
Upon  his  retirement  as  light-keeper,  in  1848,  he  moved  across 
to  Appledore,  and  there  engaged  with  a  brother  from  Ports- 
mouth in  the  fishing  business.  Meanwhile  they  had  built  a 
comfortable  i  house  of  entertainment '  for  the  occasional  visitors 
who  drifted  over  from  the  mainland ;  and  from  this  developed 
the  greater  hotel  of  the  Laighton  family.  Thomas  Laighton 
died  in  1865,  and  was  buried  on  his  island.  His  wife,  born 
Eliza  Byrnes,  of  Portsmouth,  '  a  woman  of  remarkable  good 
sense  and  a  strong  physique,'  long  survived  him;  and  when 
she  died,  in  1877,  her  grave  was  also  made  on  the  island. 
Seventeen  years  later  Celia's  burial-place  was  by  her  side. 

"  The  discoverer  of  the  isles  as  a  summering  place  and 
health  restorer,  was  the  scholarly  John  Weiss,  liberal  minister 
and  litterateur,  and  the  biographer  of  Theodore  Parker.  He 
came  first  to  the  lighthouse  with  a  companion,  in  1846,  and 
made  friends  with  the  Laighton  family.  They  found  the 
light-keeper  <  rough,  but  good  humored  ; '  the  good  wife  genu- 
inely pleased  to  see  them  ;  Celia,  a  '  bright-looking,  rosy-faced 
girl ; '  and  the  two  boys,  Oscar  and  Cedric,  with  l  their  hair  cut 
straight  across  their  foreheads  to  keep  it  out  of  their  eyes.' 

"  When  the  family  removed  to  Appledore,  Celia  was  thir- 
teen. Among  the  earlier  summer  guests  of  the  Laightons' 
'  house  of  entertainment '  was  Levi  Thaxter,  then  of  Water- 
town,  Massachusetts,  a  recent  graduate  from  Harvard.  He 


AMONG    THE  ISLES   OF  SHOALS.  123 

was  a  young  man  of  '  refined  taste  and  intellectual  endowment/ 
reserved  and  of  a  retiring  nature,  and  was  then  studying  the 
English  drama  with  an  eye  to  becoming  a  dramatic  reader  and 
possibly  an  actor.  He  was  a  cousin  of  Maria  White  who 
became  James  Russell  Lowell's  first  wife,  and  was  intimate 
with  several  rising  men  of  letters.  In  later  years  he  intro- 
duced Robert  Browning's  poetry  to  American  readers  and 
became  somewhat  widely  known  as  its  '  apostle.'  This  intel- 
lectual young  man  fell  in  love  with  the  <  rosy  -faced'  Celia,.  and 
when  she  was  sixteen  they  were  married. 

"  Young  Thaxter  took  his  girl-bride  to  a  home  in  a  suburb 
of  Boston,  and  proceeded  to  direct  her  instruction,  and  her 
literary  training  and  development.  This  was  her  first  intro- 
duction to  the  world  and  it  brought  her  exuberant  joy.  In 
Boston  '  lectures,  operas,  concerts,  theatres,  pictures,  music 
above  all,' — says  her  life-long  friend,  Mrs.  James  T.  Fields, 
'what  were  they  not  to  her?  Did  artists  ever  before  find 
such  an  eye  and  such  an  ear  ?  She  brought  to  them  a  spirit 
prepared  for  harmony,  but  utterly  ignorant  of  the  science  of 
painting  or  music  until  the  light  of  art  suddenly  broke  upon 
her  womanhood.'  Her  genius  quickly  unfolded,  and  before 
she  was  twenty  she  began  to  write  and  show  her  talent  as  a 
word-painter.  The  cottage  on  the  island,  originally  built  for 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Laighton,  was  long  Celia  Thaxter's  home  the 
greater  part  of  each  year.  And  here  was  early  established  her 
unique  salon,  to  which  were  attracted  literary  folk,  artists, 
musicians,  wits,  and  genuises  of  various  sort,  drawn  to  the 
Isles  from  time  to  time  in  the  open  seasons." 


As  we  sailed  out  from  Portsmouth  harbor  and,  were  off 
Newcastle,  we  had  the  Isles  directly  before  us.  First  they 
appeared,  as  Celia  Thaxter  has  described,  ill-defined  and  cloudy 
shapes,  faintly  discernible  in  the  distance ;  then,  as  approached, 


124  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

separating  and  showing  each  its  peculiar  characteristics.  It 
was  a  beautiful  sail,  Percy  exclaimed  repeatedly,  —  all  the 
way  from  the  start  at  the  tumbling  old  wharf  in  Portsmouth- 
town,  down  the  "  singing"  Piscataqua  between  green  shores, 
through  the  Narrows  with  the  picturesque  islands  on  either 
side,  past  old  Fort  Constitution  and  Whale  Back  with  its  twin 
light-houses,  along  the  open  sea,  to  the  finish  at  the  pier  at 
Appledore  where  we  disembarked. 

j^.fter  registering  at  the  hotel,  and  then  taking  a  hasty 
sweep  of  the  near  and  distant  island  and  sea  views  from  its 
broad  piazzas,  we  walked  across  to  the  Thaxter  cottage.  In 
the  front  yard  was  still  blooming,  as  in  its  mistress's  day,  the 
wonderful  garden  which  she  created  with  infinite  care  and 
devotion  in  the  island's  "  iron  soil,"  -—  the  theme  of  her  little 
classic,  "An  Island  Garden,"  and  of  one  of  her  daintiest  poems, 
"My  Garden."  A  "most  happy  little  garden"  indeed  it 
was,  we  agreed  as  we  recalled  her  own  descriptions  of  it  in 
prose  and  verse ;  a  space  of  "  tangled  bloom "  displaying 
through  the  seasons  a  wondrous  variety  of  gay,  brilliant- 
tinted,  old-fashioned  flowers,  —  snowdrops,  crocuses,  daffodils, 
narcissus,  hyacinths,  scillas,  English  primroses,  tulips,  and 
so  on. 

Within  the  cottage  the  "  room  of  rooms  "  was  the  parlor 
on  the  southeast  side.  "  Hawthorne  was  among  the  earliest  to 
describe  its  hostess  here,"  I  remarked.  "  His  first  visit  to  the 
Isles  was  in  September,  1852,  a  favored  guest,  bearing  an 
introduction  from  Franklin  Pierce,  then  a  Presidential  candi- 
date, in  addition  to  his  own  growing  fame.  He  wrote  in  his 
journal : 

"'In  the  evening  went  with  Mr.  Titcomb  to  Mr.  Thaxters  to  drink 
apple-toddy.  We  found  Mrs.  Thaxter  sitting  in  a  neat  little  parlor,  very 
simply  furnished,  but  in  good  taste.  She  is  not  now,  I  believe,  more  than 
eighteen  years  old,  very  pretty,  and  with  the  manners  of  a  lady, — not 
prim  and  precise,  but  with  enough  of  freedom  and  ease.  The  books  on 
the  table  were  "Fre-Raphaelitism,"  a  tract  on  spiritual  mediums,  etc. 


AMONG    THE  ISLES   OF  SHOALS.  125 

There  were  several  shelves  of  books  oil  one  side  of  the  room,  and  engrav- 
ings on  the  walls.  .  .  .  Anon  .  .  .  caine  in  the  apple-toddy,  a  very  rich 
and  spicy  compound,  after  which  we  had  some  glees  and  negro  melodies, 
in  which  Mr.  Thaxter  sang  a  noble  bass,  and  Mrs.  Thaxter  sang  like  a 
bird,  and  Mr.  [John]  Weiss  sang,  I  suppose,  tenor,  and  a  brother  took 
some  other  part ;  and  all  were  very  mirthful,  and  jolly.  At  about  ten 
o'clock  Mr.  Titcomb  and  myself  took  leave,  and  emerging  into  the  open 
air,  out  of  that  room  of  song,  and  pretty  youthf ulness  of  woman,  and  gay 
young  men,  there  was  the  sky,  and  the  three-quarters  waning  moon,  and 
the  old  sea  moaning  all  round  about  the  island.' 

"  Whittier  was  a  frequent  visitor.  He  would  sit  hour  after 
hour,  says  Mrs.  Fields,  sometimes  mending  Celia's  seolian  harp 
while  they  talked  together,  sometimes  reading  aloud  to  the 
assembled  company.  William  Morris  Hunt,  the  Boston  painter, 
was  another  often  here.  Also  Professor  John  K.  Paine,  the 
composer.  Even  Ole  Bull,  'that  Norwegian  waif  and  cele- 
brated violinist/  says  Frank  Preston  Stearns,  sometimes 
wandered  in  and  entertained  the  gathering  with  <  accounts  of 
sea-serpents  standing  on  their  tails  in  front  of  waterfalls,  and 
other  marvels  only  visible  in  Norway,  —  supposing,'  appar- 
ently, <  that  his  hearers  would  believe  anything  that  he  told 
them.'  Artists  here  first  showed  their  summer  work ;  musicians 
performed  their  new  compositions ;  poets  read  their  poems, 
essayists  their  essays.  Mrs.  Thaxter,  too,  read  her  verses  to 
the  friendly  audiences  drawn  to  her  parlor. 

"  It  was  at  the  writing-table  in  the  corner  by  the  window 
with  its  grand  outlook,  that  most  of  her  literary  work  was 
composed.  Here  during  a  winter  season  she  wrote  her  charm- 
ful  '  Among  the  Isles  of  Shoals.'  But  her  first  work  to  find 
print  was  written  elsewhere,  away  from  the  sea.  This  was  her 
poem,  <  Land-Locked.'  It  appeared  in  the  Atlantic  under 
Lowell's  editorship,  sent  to  him,  it  is  said,  by  a  friend,  and  at 
once  accepted  and  published,  to  the  young  author's  surprise 
and  gratification.  Though  one  of  her  earliest  productions  it 
has  been  classed  with  the  most  beautiful  in  form  and  thought 
of  her  mature  work.  Her  literary  output  was  not  great  in 


126  LITERARY   PILGRIMAGES. 

quantity,  —  it  is  embraced  within  three  or  four  small  volumes, 
-  but  it  was  often  exquisite  in  quality.     She  was  distinctly 
our  singer  of  the  sea." 

From  the  poet's  cottage  we  wended  our  way  to  her  grave 
in  the  little  family  graveyard,  where  Percy  copied  the  terse 
inscriptions  on  the  head  stones  as  I  read  Mrs.  Fields's  descrip- 
tion of  the  scene  at  her  burial : 


"  The  burial  was  at  her  island  on  a  quiet  afternoon  in  the  late  sum- 
mer. Her  parlor,  in  which  the  body  lay,  was  again  made  radiant,  after 
her  own  custom,  with  the  flowers  from  her  garden,  and  a  bed  of  sweet 
bay  was  prepared  by  her  friends  Appleton  Brown  and  Childe  Hassam,  on 
which  her  form  was  laid.  William  Mason  once  more  played  the  music 
from  Schumann  which  she  chiefly  loved,  and  an  old  friend,  James  De 
Normandie,  paid  a  deep  tribute  of  affection,  spoken  for  all  those  who  sur- 
rounded her.  She  was  borne  by  her  brothers  and  those  nearest  to  her  up 
to  the  silent  spot  where  her  body  was  left.  The  day  was  still  and  soft, 
and  the  veiled  sun  was  declining  as  the  solemn  procession,  bearing  flowers, 
followed  to  the  sacred  place.  At  a  respectful  distance  above  stood  a  wide 
ring  of  interested  observers,  but  only  those  who  knew  her  and  loved  her 
best  drew  near.  After  all  was  done,  and  the  body  was  at  rest  upon  the 
fragrant  bed  prepared  for  it,  the  young  flower-bearers  brought  their  bur- 
dens to  cover  her.  The  bright,  tear-stained  faces  of  those  who  held  up 
their  arms  full  of  flowers,  to  be  heaped  upon  the  spot  until  it  became  a 
mound  of  blossoms,  allied  the  scene,  in  beauty  and  simplicity,  to  the 
solemn  rites  of  antiquity." 


After  a  late  dinner  we  made  an  evening  cruise  among  the 
islands.  On  our  return  we  sat  late  upon  the  hotel  piazza  and 
listened  to  the  sea,  until  at  length  we  retired,  and  slept  "  with 
all  the  waves  of  the  Atlantic  murmuring  in  our  ears."  We 
woke  to  the  freshness  of  such  a  summer  morning  as  Celia 
Thaxter  describes  on  these  isles  :  "  the  world  like  a  new-blown 
rose,  ...  in  the  heart  of  which "  we  stood,  with  "  only  the 
caressing  music  of  the  water  to  break  the  utter  silence,  except, 
perhaps,  a  song-sparrow  "  pouring  out  "  its  blissful  warble  like 
an  embodied  joy ;  the  sea  rosy,  and  the  sky :  the  line  of  land 


AMONG    THE  ISLES    OF  SHOALS.  127 

radiant ;    the   scattered    sails "    glowing    "  with   the    delicious 
color  that  touches  so  tendeily  the  bare,  bleak  rocks." 

Breakfast  over,  we  set  sail  again  in  our  yacht  and  returned 
to  Portsmouth,  whence  we  started  forthwith  for  our  pilgrimage 
to  Portland  and  beyond. 


IX. 

IN   THE    FOREST  CITY. 

Along  the  way  from  Portsmouth.  —  South  Berwick,  home  of  Sarah  Orne 
Jewett.  —  Story  of  her  work. —  "The  Falls  of  Saco."  —  Portland's 
Longfellow  landmarks.  — The  poet's  birthplace.  — The  mansion  home 
of  his  boyhood.  —  His  life  here  and  at  the  country  homes  of  his  grand- 
fathers. —  His  first  poem  in  the  local  newspaper.  —  Its  unconscious 
critic.  —  Scenes  of  later  poems.  —  The  Portland  band  of  writers: 
Nathaniel  Deering,  John  Neal,  Seba  Smith,  Isaac  M'Lellan,  Gren- 
ville  Mellen,  Elizabeth  Oakes  Smith,  Anna  8.  W.  Stephens,  Elijah 
Kellogg.  —  Story  of  Nathaniel  P.  Willis. 

FROM  Portsmouth  to  Portland  was  a  long  railway  ride,  for 
our  train  was  an  "  accommodation,"  making  its  way  leisurely 
through  the  shore  towns  and  cities,  with  stops  at  all  the  sta- 
tions. We  took  it  because  it  was  the  first  train  of  the  schedule 
for  the  day.  The  journey,  however,  was  not  tiresome.  On 
the  contrary,  Percy  enjoyed  it  all,  for  the  country  was  pleasant, 
the  people  coming  and  going  at  the  stations  were  interesting, 
while  the  route  was  by  or  near  places  which  favorite  writers 
have  made  familiar  to  the  reading  world. 

Such  a  place  was  South  Berwick,  the  ancestral  home  of 
Sarah  Orne  Jewett  (born  1849 — ).  We  might  have  "stopped 
over"  at  North  Berwick,  the  nearest  station  on  our  line  to  this 
"  large  old  town,"  with  its  beautiful  main  street,  and  its  man- 
sions of  former  sea-kings,  and  made  a  by -trip  to  it.  But  we 
decided  to  continue  on,  Percy  being  content  with  the  picture  I 
gave  him  of  the  Jewett  homestead  and  of  the  gentlewoman 
whose  delineations  of  New  England  life  and  character,  the 
leader  of  modern  workers  in  this  field,  have  so  garnished  our 
literature. 

"  Imagine,"  I  said,  "  an  old  colonial  mansion,  two-storied, 

128 


IN   THE  FOREST  CITY.  129 

high-roofed,  liberally  proportioned,  high  panelled  hall  with 
wide,  arch  running  through  the  middle,  broad  and  easy  stair- 
way ascending  to  ample  rooms  above,  old-time  furnishings  and 
furniture  and  heirlooms  j  the  mansion  set  among  lofty  trees 
and  blossoming  shrubs  j  —  and  you  have  this  typical  old 
New  England  home. 

"  Miss  Jewett,  born  in  this  favored  mansion,  was  the  daugh- 
ter of  a  country  doctor ;  and  being  a  delicate  girl  requiring  the 
open  air,  she  early  became  the  doctor's  companion  on  his  long 


SARAH    ORNE   JEWETT. 

drives  over  a  wide  territory  to  the  homes  of  his  patients. 
Thus  she  acquired  a  peculiar  intimacy  with  the  life  of  the 
people.  While  she  attended  the  local  academy,  and  was  other- 
wise well  trained  in  <  book  learning,'  she  attributes  to  her 
father's  unobtrusive  influence  and  guidance  the  development 
of  her  talents  in  the  direction  her  work  has  taken.  In  her 
own  gracious  way  she  has  said : 

"  '  My  father  had  inherited  from  his  father  an  amazing  knowledge  of 
human   nature,  and   from   his   mother's  French   ancestry  that  peculiar 


130 


LI  TERA  R  Y  PIL  GRIM  A  GES. 


French  trait  called  gaiete  de  coeur.  Through  all  the  heavy  responsibilities 
and  anxieties  of  his  busy  professional  life,  this  kept  him  young  at  heart 
and  cheerful.  His  visits  to  his  patients  were  often  made  delightful  and 
refreshing  to  them  by  his  kind  heart,  and  the  charm  of  his  personality. 
...  I  used  to  follow  him  about  silently  like  an  undemanding  little  dog, 
content  to  follow  at  his  heels.  I  had  no  consciousness  of  watching  or 
listening,  or  indeed  of  any  special  interest  in  the  country  interiors.  In 


HOME   OF    SARAH   O.  JEWETT,  SOUTH    BERWICK,    MAINE. 

fact,  when  the  time  came  that  my  own  world  of  imagination  was  more 
real  to  me  than  any  other,  I  was  sometimes  perplexed  at  my  father's 
directing  my  attention  to  certain  points  of  interest  in  the  character  or 
surroundings  of  our  acquaintances.  I  cannot  help  believing  that  he 
recognized,  long  before  I  did  myself,  in  what  direction  the  current  of  pur- 
pose in  my  life  was  setting.  Now  as  I  write  my  sketches  of  country  life, 
I  remember  again  and  again  the  wise  things  he  said,  and  the  sights  he 
made  me  see.  He  was  only  impatient  with  affectation  and  insincerity.' 


IN    THE    FOREST   CITY. 


131 


"It  was  his  portrait  which  she -limned  in  her  story  of  'The 
Country  Doctor.'  " 

"  Both  of  Miss  Jewett's  parents  were  of  early  New  England 
ancestry.  Her  mother,  a  woman  of  refined  nature,  was  de- 
scended from  Edward  Oilman,  who  came  from  Norfolk  in  Old 


CORNER    IN    MISS    JEWETT'S  STUDY. 


England,  to  Boston  in  New  England,  back  in  1638,  and  thence 
went  to  Exeter,  New  Hampshire,  with  its  early  settlers.  In 
the  Revolution  days  the  Gilinans  were  ardent  patriots,  while 
the  Jewetts  were  devoted  loyalists. 

"  Miss  Jewett  began  writing  stories  in  her  girlhood,  and 


182  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

when  in  her  teens  first  saw  her  sketches  published  in  Our 
Young  Folks  and  The  Riverside,  —  those  juvenile  magazines  of 
the  sixties  and  seventies,  than  which  no  worthier  have  since 
been  established.  She  was  but  nineteen  when  she  sent  her 
first  sketch  to  the  Atlantic,  which  promptly  printed  it.  She 
first  published  under  the  pen-name  of  '  Alice  Eliot/  but  after 
1881  signed  her  own  name.  From  the  publication  of  her 
initial  volume,  'Deephaven/  in  1877,  she  has  brought  out  a 
book  almost  every  year,  published  first  in  magazines ;  and  her 
works  now  make  a  respectable  shelf-full.  Of  her  art,  Harriet 
Prescott  Spofford,  most  competent  as  well  as  most  sympathetic 
of  judges,  has  said :  ( the  secret  of  her  success,  outside  of  the 
artistic  perfection  of  her  work,  is  the  spirit  of  loving  kindness 
and  tender  mercy  that  pervades  it.'  " 

Another  place  of  especial  interest  to  Percy  was  Saco,  with 
the  Saco  River,  now  "vexed  in  all  its  seaward  course  with 
bridges,  dams  and  mills  "  ;  for  once  upon  a  time  he  had  de- 
claimed at  school  Whittier's  "  The  Falls  of  the  Saco,"  begin- 
ning: 

"  Who  stands  on  that  cliff,  like  a  figure  of  stone, 

Unmoving  and  tall  in  the  light  of  the  sky 
Where  the  spray  of  the  cataract  sparkles  on  high, 

Lonely  and  sternly,  save  Mogg  Magone?" 

At  length  in  Portland,  we  sought  at  once  the  Longfellow 
landmarks.  These  are  some  distance  from  the  station,  up  in  the 
business  center  and  down  by  the  wharves.  So  we  took  a 
trolley  car  and  rode  up  town.  On  the  chief  thoroughfare  — 
Congress  Street  —  we  passed  the  principal  Longfellow  house, 
of  which  Percy  got  a  glimpse  ;  but  we  kept  on,  to  begin  at  the 
beginning,  with  Longfellow's  birthplace. 

This  we  found  after  various  turns,  on  old  Fore  Street,  a 
tenement  house  now.  It  is  no  longer  the  "  old  square  wooden 
house  on  the  edge  of  the  sea."  The  street  no  longer  runs 
along  the  shore  with  the  beach  on  the  opposite  side.  Years 


IN    THE   FOREST   CITY. 


133 


ago  the  region  changed.  Percy  could  see  nothing  to  admire 
in  either  house  or  neighborhood  to-day.  It  was  hard  for  him 
to  imagine  that  both  were  delightsome  in  Longfellow's  child- 
hood, But  that  both  were  so,  we  have  the  assurance  of  the 
local  historian.  Then  the  mansion  commanded  a  fine  outlook 
over  the  harbor  ;  and  the  neighborhood  was  within  the  "  court- 
end  "  of  the  town.  Now,  where  the  tide  ebbed  and  flowed,  is 


BIRTHPLACE   OF    LONGFELLOW. 

land,  and  over  the  beach  where  sometimes  on  Sundays  the 
rite  of  baptism  was  administered  before  throngs  of  spectators, 
railroad  trains  run. 

We  tarried  here  only  long  enough  to  identify  the  house, 
and  recall  its  brief  history  so  far  as  its  association  with  the 
poet  was  concerned. 

11  It  was  the  home  of  his  father's  brother-in-law,  prosperous 
Captain  Samuel  Stephenson,"  I  related,  "  who  built  it,  not  long 
before  the  poet's  birth.  His  parents  were  temporarily  living 
here,  with  their  little  son  Stephen,  spending  the  winter  with 


134  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

Aunt  Stephenson,  when  Henry  was  born,  on  the  27th  of 
February,  1807.  When  he  was  a  little  more  than  a  year  old 
the  family  went  to  live  in  the  brick  mansion  on  Congress 
Street.  Five  or  six  yea.rs  afterward,  at  the  time  of  the 
Embargo  '  which  left  the  ships  rotting  at  the  wharves,'  Uncle 
and  Aunt  Stephenson  moved  away  to  Gorham,  upon  a  farni 
adjoining  Grandfather  Longfellow's  place  there ;  and  this 
'  old  square  house  by  the  sea '  knew  no  more  of  the 
Longfellows." 

We  walked  back  to  Congress  Street  and  now  inspected 
the  other  house  most  closely  identified  with  Longfellow,  the 
developing  boy  and  youth.  This  also  has  changed  in  the 
passing  years,  but  only  slightly,  we  saw,  as  compared  with 
the  Fore  Street  house.  Though  crowded,  by  modern  structures 
on  either  side,  it  yet  preserves  its  dignity,  and  retains  traces 
of  the  aspect  it  bore  when  it  was  among  the  stateliest  mansions 
of  the  town,  and  shaded  by  drooping  elms  in  front. 

"This  mansion,"  I  remarked  as  we  stood  off  a  decorous 
distance,  while  Percy  deftly  took  a  snap-shot  of  it  with  his 
kodak,  "  was  erected  by  the  poet's  maternal  grandfather,  brave 
General  Peleg  Wads  worth,  not  long  after  the  Eevolutionary 
War,  in  which  he  took  so  effective  a  part  in  Rhode  Island  and 
in  the  expedition  to  *  The  Eastward,'  as  Maine  then  was." 

"  Yes,"  said  Percy,  "  the  *  schoolmaster-soldier  of  Kings- 
ton,' of  whose  closing  of  his  school  in  Plymouth  and  start 
off  with  his  minute-men  after  the  Concord  Fight,  we  heard 
during  our  historic  pilgrimages  in  those  old  Colony  towns  of 
Massachusetts." 

"  Exactly.  And  after  the  war  he  acquired  a  great  estate  of 
seven  thousand  acres  of  wild  lands  between  Saco  and  the 
Ossipee  River,  —  '  Wadsworth  Grant '  it  was  sometimes  des- 
ignated on  the  map,  —  and  there,  in  his  great  house  at  Hiram, 
which  he  established  the  year  of  the  poet's  birth,  he  passed 
his  declining  years.  He  was  a  fine  figure  of  a  man  with  his 
soldierly  bearing,  upright  form,  cocked  hat,  and  buckled  shoes. 


IN   THE  FOREST  CITY. 


135 


136  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

This  Portland  mansion  of  his  was  the  first  brick  house  in  the 
town.  Two  years  were  occupied  in  its  building,  1784-86,  for 
it  was  constructed  with  that  deliberation  and  thoroughness 
which  characterized  those  simple  days.  It  was  then  amid 
green  fields.  Here  Zilpah  Wadsworth  passed  her  girlhood, 
coming  to  the  new  house  when  she  was  a  child  of  seven.  Here 
she  was  married  to  Stephen  Longfellow.  And  here,  after  the 
General's  removal  to  Hiram,  was  their  home  for  the  remainder 
of  their  lives.  It  was  the  poet's  home  till  his  establishment 
at  Bowdoin  College  in  the  professor's  chair.  During  the 
greater  part  of  his  life  it  was  his  custom  to  visit  the  old  place 
once  a  year ;  and  his  was  a  familiar  face  seen  by  the  parlor 
window,  or  on  the  street  on  these  occasions.  The  house 
remained  in  the  Longfellow  family  till  it  was  acquired  by  the 
Maine  Historical  Society,  by  deed  of  gift  from  the  poet's 
sister,  Mrs.  Anna  Longfellow  Pierce,  whose  death  in  1900 
closed  her  peaceful  life  here." 

The  door  of  the  old  house  opened  to  us,  and  Percy  enjoyed 
the  pleasant  interior.  The  "  boys'  room "  was  on  the  upper 
floor,  he  was  told.  In  their  day,  as  Samuel  Longfellow,  the 
poet's  brother,  has  described  it,  this  room  looked  out  over 
the  "  Cove,"  and  farms,  and  woodlands,  toward  Mount  Wash- 
ington in  full  view  on  the  western  horizon  ;  while  the  eastern 
chambers  commanded  an  unbroken  view  of  the  bay.  Then  in 
the  kitchen  "  hung  the  crane  over  the  coals  in  the  old  broad 
fireplace,  upon  whose  iron  back  a  fish  forever  baked  in  effigy." 
In  the  family  room  was  the  father's  small  buir  well-selected 
library,  embracing  Shakspere,  Milton,  Pope,  Dryden,  Thomson, 
Goldsmith,  the  Spectator,  the  Lives  of  the  Poets,  Rasselas, 
and  Plutarch's  Lives,  which  Henry  absorbed  as  he  grew  into 
boyhood. 

He  had  access,  as  well,  to  the  Portland  Library  ;  and 
"  sometimes  of  evenings  he  got  permission  to  go  down  to 
Johnson's  bookstore  to  look  over  the  new  books  arrived  from 
Boston."  His  school  life  began  at  three  years  of  age,  at  a 


IN    THE  FOREST   CITY. 


137 


"  dame's  school,"  kept  by  "  Ma'am  Fellows."  He  remembered 
being  carried  to  school  sometimes  on  horseback  in  front  of  the 
colored  man  who  worked  for  his  father.  At  five  he  began 
going  to  a  public  school ;  then,  soon  after,  to  a  private  school ; 
then,  at  six,  to  the  Portland  Academy.  At  fourteen  he  entered 
Bowdoin,  with  his  elder  brother,  Stephen. 

We  recalled  the  home  life  in  the  mansion-house.  The  father 
was  a  lawyer  foremost  in  his  profession,  holding  high  position 
at  the  Cumberland  Bar;  a 
man  of  "  sound  good  sense 
in  affairs,  high  integrity,  lib- 
erality and  public  spirit,  old- 
time  courtesy  of  manners, 
and  cordial  hospitality."  He 
had  graduated  with  honor  at 
Harvard,  in  the  same  class 
with  William  Ellery  Chan- 
ning  and  Judge  Story.  He 
was  a  representative  in  the 
Legislature  of  Massachusetts 
in  1814,  and  in  Congress 
in  1823-1825.  The  mother 
was  a  refined  and  delicate 
woman,  fond  of  poetry  and 
music,  and  a  lover  of  nature. 
"  She  would  sit  by  a  window  • 

during  a  thunder-storm  enjoying  the  excitement  of  its  splen- 
dors." From  her,  his  brother  says,  came  the  imaginative  and 
romantic  side  of  Longfellow's  nature.  Another  inmate  of  the 
household  was  "  Aunt  Lucia,"  the  mother's  sister,  who  "  was 
like  a  second  mother  to  her  children."  It  was  a  gentle  home, 
well  ordered  and  wholesome. 

Long  holidays  were  spent  by  the  boys  at  the  homes  of 
the  grandfathers,  —  Grandfather  Longfellow's  in  Gorhain,  and 
Grandfather  Wadsworth's  in  Hiram.  Grandfather  Longfellow, 


HENRY    WADSWORTH    LONGFELLOW. 


138  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

the  judge,  like  General  Wadsworth,  was  a  man  of  marked 
characteristics.  He  was  "  an  erect,  portly  figure,  rather  tall ; 
wearing  almost  to  the  close  of  his  life  the  old-style  dress,  — 
long-skirted  waistcoat,  small-clothes,  and  white-topped  boots, 
his  hair  tied  behind  in  a  club,  with  black  ribbon."  Not  far 
from  Grandfather  Wadsworth's  place  was  the  scene  of  Long- 
fellow's first  published  poem,  "  The  Battle  of  LovelFs  Pond," 
—  the  lake  in  Fryeburg  about  which  occurred  "Lovwell's 
Fight "  with  the  Indians. 

The  story,  as  told,  of  the  publication  of  this  first  poem 
when  Longfellow  was  but  thirteen  recalled  somewhat  that  of 
Whittier's  first  poem  in  print.  With  "trembling  and  misgiv- 
ing of  heart"  the  boy  "ran  down  to  Mr.  Shirley's  printing- 
office  "  —  the  office  of  the  semi-weekly  Portland  Gazette,  — 
"and  cautiously  slipped  his  manuscript  into  the  letter-box." 
The  evening  before  the  publication  day  he  went  again  and  stood 
shivering  in  the  November  air,  casting  many  a  glance  at  the 
windows  through  which  he  saw  the  printers  at  work,  afraid  to 
venture  in.  Only  his  sister  (who  like  Whittier's  received  his 
literary  confidences)  had  been  let  into  the  secret.  At  length 
the  paper  appeared,  —  the  issue  of  Nov.  17,  1820,  —  and  in 
its  "  Poet's  Corner "  his  precious  lines.  Long  after  he  said, 
"  I  don't  think  any  other  literary  success  in  my  life  has  made 
me  quite  so  happy  since." 

But  mark  the  denouement.  That  evening  he  went  with  his 
father  to  call  upon  the  father's  friend,  Judge  Mellen,  whose 
son  Fred  was  his  own  intimate.  In  the  circle  about  the  fire 
the  talk  drifted  upon  poetry.  During  the  conversation  the 
judge  took  up  that  day's  Gazette,  and  his  eye  sought  the 
"  Poet's  Corner."  Then  said  he,  "  Did  you  see  this  piece  in 
to-day's  paper  ?  Very  stiff ;  remarkably  stiff.  Moreover,  it  is 
also  borrowed,  every  word  of  it !  "  The  secret  author  in  his 
corner  flushed  and  paled,  and  flushed  and  paled  again.  His 
heart  shrank  within  him  ;  and  that  night  hot  tears  wet  his 
pillow. 


IN   THE  FOREST  CITY.  139 

Bidding  adieu  to  the  old  mansion,  we  walked  farther  up 
Congress  Street,  passing  the  site  of  the  "  Freemasons'  Arms/' 
the  tavern  of  Thomas  Motley,  grandfather  of  the  historian 
John  Lothrop  Motley ;  and  coming  to  Longfellow  Square  we 
saw  the  excellent  bronze  statue  of  Longfellow. 

Then  we  extended  our  stroll  to  embrace  picturesque  parts 
of  the  city  "  that  is  seated  by  the  sea,"  and  its  natural  beau- 
ties which  have  been  celebrated  in  prose  and  verse.  Percy 
especially  desired  to  seek  the  points,  if  any  still  existed,  re- 
ferred to  in  Longfellow's  idyl  of  "  My  Lost  Youth,"  which  he 
said  he  had  somewhere  read  pictured  Portland  in  the  poet's 
boyhood.  So  we  wandered  up  and  down  "  the  dear  old  town," 
Percy,  where  traces  of  these  places  could  no  longer  be  found, 
imagining  them,  with  the  scenes  described  in  the  poem. 

First,  being  in  its  vicinity,  we  turned  toward  the  Bram- 
hall's  Hill  region,  —  the  modern  «  West  End  "  of  the  city,  with 
its  elm-shaded  streets  and  detached  houses,  set  by  gardens  and 
lawns.  We  strolled  along  the  Western  Promenade  skirting  the 
brow  of  the  hill,  and  enjoyed  the  expanding  views  of  country 
and  mountain.  We  looked  off  upon 

"...  the  breezy  dome  of  groves, 
The  shadows  of  Deering  Woods:  —  " 

the  Deering  Woods  ''fresh  and  fair"  of  the  poet's  memory, — 
now  preserved  as  a  public  park. 

Then  we  walked  back  to  the  easterly  end  of  the  city, 
the  older  part,  where  is  Munjoy's  Hill  with  the  Eastern 
Promenade,  overlooking  the  bay,  its  green  isles,  and  the  ocean 
beyond.  In  this  quarter  were  most  of  the  places  and  scenes  of 
the  poet's  boyhood  recollections  :  the  bulwarks  by  the  shore ; 
the  fort  upon  the  hill,  and  its  familiar  sounds  lingering  in  his 

memory : 

"The  sunrise  gun  with  its  hollow  roar, 
The  drum-beat  repeated  o'er  and  o'er, 
And  the  bugle  wild  and  shrill. 


140  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

...  the  sea-fight  far  away 

How  it  thundered  o'er  the  tide  ! " 

The  graves  of  the  dead  captains  in  the  old  burying-ground, 

"...  o'erlooking  the  tranquil  bay 
Where  they  in  battle  died." 

And  down  by  the  water-side,  long  ago  built  over, 

"...  the  black  wharves  and  the  slips, 

And  the  sea-tides  tossing  free  ; 
And  Spanish  sailors  with  bearded  lips, 
And  the  beauty  and  mystery  of  the  ships, 

And  the  magic  of  the  sea." 

As  we  strolled  into  this  east  end  we  caught 

"  .  .  .  in  sudden  gleams 

The  sheen  of  the  far-surrounding  seas, 
And  islands  that  were  the  Hesperides 
Of  all  my  boyish  dreams." 

Ascending  the  hill  we  loitered  about  the  old  burying-ground 
where  lay  in  their  graves,  besides  the  "  dead  captains,"  brave 
Commodore  Preble,  the  poet's  father,  and  other  worthies  long 
passed  on ;  where  also  is  the  memorial  to  the  gallant  Lieuten- 
ant Henry  Wadsworth,  the  brother  of  the  poet's  mother,  for 
whom  he  was  named. 

Here,  while  Percy  tarried  by  the  monuments  and  copied 
their  inscriptions,  we  recalled  the  story  of  the  "  dead  captains.'7 
They  were  the  Yankee  William  Burroughs,  of  the  United 
States  brig  Enterprise,  and  the  British  Samuel  Blythe,  of  His 
Majesty's  brig  Boxer.  Their  sea-fight  was  one  of  the  memor- 
able encounters  of  the  war  of  1812.  It  occurred  off  this  coast, 
almost  in  sight  of  the  town,  on  the  5th  of  September,  1813. 
Both  commanders  were  killed  in  the  engagement,  and  after  it 
"  both  lay  side  by  side  in  the  same  dark,  low  cabin."  John 
Xeal  has  told  how  the  colors  of  the  Boxer  were  nailed  to  the 
mast ;  how  her  decks  were  swept  from  her  bow  aft,  over  and 


IN   THE   FOREST  CITY.  141 

over  again  ;  how  she  was  hulled  several  times  with  18-pound 
shot ;  and  how  by  one  of  these  shot  her  valiant  captain  was 
literally  cut  in  two.  Three  days  afterward,  when  they  had 
been  brought  ashore,  the  dead  captains  were  given  a  public 
funeral,  and  here  interred  side  by  side.  Beside  them,  as  we 
saw,  was  laid  Lieut.  Kerwin  Waters  of  the  Enterprise,  mortally 
wounded  in  the  same  action. 

Then  we  read  the  story  of  Lieut.  Henry  Wadsworth, 
inscribed  on  the  cenotaph  erected  by  his  father,  General 
Wadsworth  :  .  .  .  «  Lieutenant  in  the  United  States  Navy," 
who  fell  before  the  walls  of  Tripoli  on  the  eve  of  the  4th 
September,  1804,  in  the  20th  year  of  his  age,  by  an  explosion 
of  a  fire-ship,  which  he  with  others  gallantly  conducted  against 
the  enemy.  <  An  honor  to  his  country  and  an  example  to  all 
excellent  youth/  —  Extract  from  a  Resolve  of  Congress  upon 
his  act."  He  was  attached  to  the  schooner  Scourge  in  Com- 
modore Treble's  squadron,  led  by  the  Constitution,  and  was  a 
volunteer  for  the  daring  service  in  which  he  met  his  death. 

"  Another  brother  of  the  poet's  mother,"  I  added,  "  was  in 
the  navy,  and  conspicuously  honored  for  gallant  service.  He 
was  Alexander  Scannel  Wads  worth,  born  in  the  Congress- 
Street  mansion  in  1790.  He  was  second  lieutenant  on  the 
Constitution  when  she  engaged  the  British  frigate  Giterriere 
off  Newfoundland,  in  August,  1812,  and  captured  her  after 
shooting  away  her  three  masts  and  so  cutting  her  up  that  she 
had  to  be  burned ;  —  from  which  encounter,  by  the  way,  the 
Constitution,  issuing  with  comparatively  slight  bruises,  got  her 
beloved  nickname  of  '  Old  Ironsides.' " 

The  scenes  of  other  poems  of  Longfellow's  laid  in  this  old 
quarter  of  the  town,  we  could  not  trace,  for  they  were  oblit- 
erated years  ago.  Time  long  since  swept  away  "  The  Rope- 
walk."  And  long  ago  disappeared  the  "blossoming  hawthorn 
tree  "  under  the  hill,  beneath  the  branches  of  which  the  poet, 
when  a  boy,  watched  the  old  potter  at  his  work,  going  back 
and  forth,  as  described  in  "  Keramos." 


142  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

Having  heard  that  with  Portland  is  identified,  besides 
Longfellow,  a  notable  band  of  old-time  writers  who  have  had  a 
share  in  the  making  of  American  literature,  Percy  desired  next 
to  see  their  "landmarks."  But  little  or  nothing  of  them  is 
now  traceable  ;  so  he  had  to  be  content  with  talk  only  of  these 
authors  and  their  accomplishments. 

We  recalled,  first,  the  Portland-born  writers  who  were 
coming  forward  promisingly  when  Longfellow  was  a  boy. 
Among  these  was  the  cultured  Nathaniel  Peering  (born  1791  — 
died  1881),  living  to  ninety  years,  who  wrote  poems,  tales  of 
"  Down  East "  life,  and  "  Carabasset,  or  the  last  of  the  Nor- 
ridgewocks,"  and  "  Bozzaris,"  two  five-act  tragedies,  produced 
at  the  Portland  Theatre  in  1831,  which  brought  him  more  than 
local  fame.  Another  was  the  exuberant  John  Neal  (born 
1793  —  died  1876),  living  to  eighty-three,  poet,  editor,  novelist, 
magazine-writer,  dramatist ;  of  a  style  "  impetuous,  indepen- 
dent, with  dash  and  audacity "  ;  whose  most'  lasting  renown 
came  from,  his  "  Battle  of  Niagara,"  published  .  in  1818. 
Another  was  Seba  Smith  (born  1792  —  died  1868),  whose  birth- 
place was  a  log  house  in  the  woods  of  Bucksfield ;  editor,  poet, 
and  author  of  the  "  Major  Jack  Downing  "  papers,  a  famous 
series  of  political  and  humorous  writings  in  the  Yankee 
dialect. 

Then  were  considered  Longfellow's  earlier  contemporaries  : 
Nathaniel  Parker  Willis  (born  1807  —  died  1867),  most  bril- 
liant star  of  .this  galaxy,  Longfellow's  senior  by  a  year  ;  Isaac 
M'Lellan  (born  1806  —  died  1899),  "  poet  of  the  rod  and  gun," 
Willis's  classmate  at  Phillips  (Andover)  Academy,  Longfellow's 
and  Hawthorne's  college-mate  at  Bowdoin,  a  life-long  friend 
of  these  three,  and  of  Motley,  Bryant,  and  Holmes :  whose 
honorable  career  closed  at  the  age  of  ninety-three  in  his  rural 
home  at  Greenport,  Long  Island;  Grenville  Mellen  (born 
1799 — died  1841),  poet,  essayist,  writer  of  "Glad  Tales  and 
Sad  Tales,"  eldest  son  of  that  Judge  Mellen  (the  first  chief 
justice  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  Maine,  by  the  way)  whose 


IN   THE  FOREST  CITY. 


143 


cutting  criticism  of   Longfellow's  first   printed  poem  so  dis- 
tressed the  boy. 

Then  writers  of  a  later  period :  Elizabeth  Oakes  Smith 
(born  in  North  Yarmouth,  Me.,  1806  —  died  in  New  York, 
1893),  wife  of  Seba  Smith,  poet,  romancer,  and  the  first  woman 
in  America  to  appear  as  a  public  lecturer;  Mrs.  Ann  S* 
Winterbotham  Stephens  (born  in  Derby,  Conn.,  1813,  died  in 
Newport,  R.  I.,  1886),  novelist,  doing  her  earliest  work  in 
Portland,  writer  of  fifty 
novels,  one  of  them 
"  Fashion  and  Famine," 
reaching  a  circulation 
second  only  to  "  Uncle 
Tom's  Cabin  " ;  the  Rev. 
Elijah  Kellogg  (born 
1813  — died  1901),  pro- 
lific producer  of  boys' 
books  through  a  long 
life;  Mrs.  Abba  Goold 
Woolson  (born  1838—), 
daughter  of  the  historian 
William  Goold,  essayist 
and  lecturer ;  and  Pro- 
fessor Edward  S.  Morse 
(from  1838—),  the  emi- 
nent naturalist. 

Percy  was  most  disappointed  in  not  finding  the  house  in 
which  N.  P.  Willis  was  born ;  for  once  upon  a  time,  he  said, 
when  a  boy  in  school,  he  declaimed  a  poem  of  Willis's  which 
his  mother  had  selected  for  him  from  the  "  Household  Book 
of  Poetry,"  a  thick  volume  given  her  by  his  father  for  a 
Christmas  present.  And  he  repeated  the  familiar  lines  of 
"  Saturday  Afternoon,"  yet  fresh  in  his  mind,  which  stirred 
memories  of  my  own  far  distant  boyhood,  when  a  fond  mother 
was  wont  to  quote  them  to  her  boys  at  play. 


ELIZABETH. OAKES    SMITH. 


144  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

I  comforted  Percy  with  the  reflection  that  the  house  in 
which  this  debonair  penman  was  born  could  have  but  slight 
charm,  for  Willis  passed  only  a  part  of  his  childhood  in  Port- 
land. He  was  but  six  years  old  when  the  family  was  moved 
to  Boston,  and  Portland  knew  him  no  more  except  as  a  casual 
visitor.  He  retained  but  little  recollection  of  the  home  here, 
and  his  birthplace  was  never  the  subject  of  his  writings.  "  It 
was  his  father,"  I  explained,  "  who  was  the  Willis  most  closely 
connected  with  Portland,  for  he  was  an  editor  here  for 
nearly  ten  years.  He  was  Deacon  Nathaniel  Willis,  born  in 
Boston  in  1780,  and  living  to  the  age  of  ninety.  He  came  to 
Portland  in  1803,  and  established  the  Eastern  Argus  news- 
paper. Later,  in  Boston,  he  founded  the  Boston  Recorder,  said 
to  have  been  the  first  religious  newspaper  in  the  world ;  and  in 
1827,  he  started  the  still  rugged  Youth's  Companion,  of  which 
he  was  editor  for  thirty  years. 

"  Willis's  grandfather,  another  Nathaniel  Willis,  was  also  an 
editor,  and  a  vigorous  one.  From  1776  through  the  Revolu- 
tion he  edited  that  staunch  Whig  paper,  the  Independent 
Chronicle  and  Universal  Advertiser  of  Boston,  for  which  Sam 
Adams  wrote.  Its  office  was  in  the  selfsame  building  on  Court, 
earlier  Queen  Street,  in  which  Benjamin  Franklin  worked  as 
an  apprentice  on  his  brother's  paper,  the  New  England  Courant. 
And  Willis's  father,  when  engaged  at  his  father's  press,  worked 
in  the  same  place.  Grandfather  Willis,  so  tradition  has  it, 
was  one  of  the  <  Boston  Tea  Party.'  At  the  close  of  the  Revo- 
lution he  went  south  and  west  where  he  edited  various  papers, 
lastly  establishing  in  Chillicothe,  Ohio,  the  first  newspaper  of 
what  was  then  the  Northwestern  Territory. 

"  Our  Willis  was  fortunate  in  other  ancestors  of  pronounced 
character.  His  great  grandmother  Willis  was  a  Belknap, 
granddaughter  to  the  Rev.  John  Bailey,  the  first  minister  of 
Watertown,  Massachusetts.  His  great-grandfather  was  an 
active  patriot.  His  mother,  born  Hannah  Parker,  was  of  an 
excellent  New  England  family.  From  her,  Professor  Henry 


IN   THE  FOREST  CITY.  145 

A.   Beers,  Willis's  biographer,  says,  he  inherited  the  emotional, 
impulsive  part  of  his  nature,  —  his  <  quicksilver  spirit.' ': 

As  to  the  character  of  Willis's  literary  work  and  his  place 
among  the  makers  of  American  literature,  about  which  Percy 
asked,  I  quoted  from  Lowell's  "  A  Fable  For  Critics  :  " 

"There  is  Willis,  all  natty  and  jaunty  and  gay, 
Who  says  his  best  things  in  so  foppish  a  way, 
With  conceits  and  pet  phrases  so  thickly  o'erlaying  'em, 
That  one  hardly  knows  whether  to  thank  him  for  saying  'em ; 
Over-ornament  ruins  both  poem  and  prose, 
Just  conceive  of  a  Muse  with  a  ring  in  her  nose  ! 
His  prose  has  a  natural  grace  of  its  own, 
And  enough  of  it,  too,  if  he'd  let  it  alone  ; 
But  he  twitches  and  jerks  so,  one  fairly  gets  tired, 
And  is  forced  to  forgive  where  one  might  have  admired; 
Yet  whenever  it  slips  away  free  and  unlaced, 
It  runs  like  a  stream  with  a  musical  waste, 
And  gurgles  along  with  the  liquidest  sweep  ;  — 
'Tis  not  deep  as  a  river,  but  who'd  have  it  deep  ? 
In  a    country  where  scarcely  a  village  is  found 
That  has  not  its  author  sublime  and  profound, 
For  some  one  to  be  slightly  shallow's  a  duty, 
And  Willis's  shallowness  makes  half  his  beauty. 

His  nature's  a  glass  of  champagne  with  the  foam  on  't, 

As  tender  as  Fletcher,  as  witty  as  Beaumont; 

So  his  best  things  are  done  in  the  flush  of  the  moment  ; 

If  he  wait,  all  is  spoiled  ;  he  may  stir  it  and  shake  it, 

But,  the  fixed  air  once  gone,  he  can  never  remake  it. 

He  might  be  a  marvel  of  easy  delightfulness, 

If  he  would  not  sometimes  leave  the  r  out  of  sprightfulness ; 

And  he  ought  to  let" Scripture  alone  —  'tis  self-slaughter, 

For  nobody  likes  inspiration-and-water." 

"The  characteristics  which  Lowell  so  deftly  points  out, 
marked  almost  all  of  Willis's  writings,"  I  ventured.  "  What 
he  accomplished  was  gained  only  as  in  his  youth  he  once 
wrote,  '  by  ardor  and  not  by  patience/  His  work  was  done 
largely  '  in  the  rush  of  the  gay  world,  and  the  daily  drudgery 


146 


LITERAR  Y  PIL  G  RIM  A  GES. 


of  the  pen :  in  the  toil  of  journalism,  that  most  exacting  of 
mental  occupations,  which  is  forever  giving  forth  and  never 
bringing  in,'  as  Professor  Beers  has  well  said ;  yet  it  had  a 
freshness,  an  air,  a  sparkle  all  its  own,  which  made  him  for  a 
time  the  most  popular  magazine  writer  in  the  country.  His 
English,  as  Beers  notes,  was  crisp,  clean-cut,  pointed,  <  nimble 
on  the  turn/  As  a  poet  he  won  a  reputation  before  leaving 
college,  and  as  a  writer  of  prose  he  gained  an  enviable  name 

before  thirty.  His  best  work 
was  done  before  forty.  He 
lived  to  sixty-one  and  wrote 
steadily  almost  to  the  end,  but 
none  of  his  later  work  was  so 
lasting  as  the  earlier.  He  was 
the  forerunner  of  the  gossip- 
ing '  foreign  correspondent,' 
when  the  old  world  was  more 
distant,  less  known,  than  now, 
and  a  type  of  which  Bayard 
Taylor  was  the  later  exemp- 
lar. He  was  the  pioneer  of 
what  may  be  termed  collo- 
quial journalism  ;  and  a  coiner 
of  journalistic  phrases  and 
'  short-cuts,'  some  of  which 
long  survived,  —  like  '  the  upper  ten,'  or  <  the  upper  ten 
thousand,'  for  the  < exclusive'  set.  He  was  a  'tuft  hunter/ 
but  a  joyously  frank,  not  a  vulgar  one. 

"His  personality  was  engaging,  and  was  no  slight  factor  in 
his  popularity.  He  carried  himself,  says  Beers,  with  an  « airy, 
jaunty  grace,  and  there  was  something  particularly  spirited  and 
vif  about  the  poise  and  movement  of  his  head,  —  a  something 
which  no  portrait  could  reproduce.'  Powell,  in  the  '  Living 
Authors  of  America,'  published  in  1850,  describes  him,  in 
person,  tall  and  elegantly  made  ;  with  manners  courteous,  and 


N.  P.  WILLIS. 


IN   THE  FOREST  CITY.  147 

the  polish  of  high  breeding.  Holmes  recalled  him,  when  in 
the  flush  of  young  manhood,  as  'very  near  being  very  hand- 
some. His  hair  of  light  brown  color  waved  in  luxuriant 
abundance,  and  his  cheek  was  as  rosy  as  if  it  had  been  painted 
to  show  behind  the  footlights,  and  he  dressed  with  artistic 
elegance.'  Longfellow  wrote  of  him,  upon  his  return  from 
England  in  1857,  « Willis  looks  very  well:  fresh,  rosy,  and 
young ;  the  youngest  looking  man  of  fifty  I  ever  saw :  not  a 
gray  hair  even  in  his  beard;  and  as  slender  and  lithe  as  ever/ 
In  dress  he  was  a  dandy,  but  a  graceful  one." 

"  So  Willis  was,  like  Longfellow,  a  <  boy  poet/  if,  as  you 
say,  his  reputation  was  established  before  he  left  college," 
Percy  observed. 

"  Only  to  a  slight  extent.  He  began  writing  verse  when  at 
the  academy  at  Andover,  but  this  was  only  playfulness.  He 
was  an  undergraduate  when  he  first  published. 

"  His  school  life  began  in  a  boarding-school,  and  later  he 
went  to  the  Boston  Latin  School.  In  Boston  he  was  mate  of 
a  number  of  boys  who  became  famous  in  professional  life  and 
in  letters.  He  recalled  in  after  years  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson 
as  a  boy  whom  he  used  to  see  playing  around  Chauncy  Place 
and  Summer  Street,  —  <  one  of  those  pale  little  moral-sublimes 
with  their  shirt  collars  turned  over  who  were  recognized  by 
Boston  schoolboys  as  having  "  fathers  that  are  Unitarians  ;  " 
who  '  came  to  his  first  short  hair  about  the  time  that  we  came 
to  our  first  tail-coat,  six  or  eight  years  behind  us.7  Willis 
went  to  Phillips  (Andover)  Academy  to  prepare  for  Yale, 
which  he  entered  at  seventeen,  in  1823.  In  his  junior  year 
verses  from  his  pen  began  to  appear  in  the  f  Poet's  Corner '  of 
his  father's  Boston  Recorder,  in  other  religious  weeklies,  and 
in  the  Youth's  Companion.  These  were  mainly  on  scriptural 
subjects.  In  his  sophomore  year  he  won  a  prize  for  a  poem 
in  the  New  York  Mirror,  with  which  he  afterward  became 
connected.  His  'Absalom,'  and  'The  Sacrifice  of  Abraham/ 
were  also  prize  poems.  These  early  efforts  were  widely 


148  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

copied  ;  some  were  reproduced  in  popular  collections  of  poems  ; 
and  while  yet  in  college  the  young  author's  contributions  were 
being  sought  by  magazine  editors.  He  thus  became  a  little 
literary  lion  in  the  college  town ;  was  received  much  in 
society,  and  nattered  and  petted.  At  graduation  he  delivered 
the  valedictory  poem  of  his  class.  Upon  his  leaving  college, 
his  first  collection  of  verses  appeared,  a  thin  volume,  entitled 
<  Sketches.' 

"  Returning  to  Boston  he  began  work  with  Samuel  G. 
Goodrich  (<  Peter  Parley ')  who  had  published  Willis's  first 
book.  Here  he  edited  The  Legendary,  a  periodical,  of  which 
only  two  volumes  were  published ;  and  next  Goodrich's 
'  Annual/  The  Token,  in  1829.  For  the  latter,  he  wrote, 
besides  other  poems  and  sketches,  your  '  Saturday  Afternoon.' 
It  was  written  to  accompany  the  frontispiece  of  the  volume, 
an  engraving  of  a  painting  of  children  swinging  in  a  barn. 

"  Meanwhile,  in  the  spring  of  1829,  Willis  started  his  own 
journal,  the  American  Monthly  Magazine,  without  capital, 
with  only  the  experience  of  his  apprenticeship  in  editing  for 
Goodrich,  and  a  profound  incapacity  for  business.  Of  course 
it  failed.  But  it  had  a  run  of  two  and  a  half  years,  and  held 
a  fair  place  among  its  contemporaries.  Willis  wrote  the  larger 
part  of  its  contents,  and  drew  to  its  pages  some  of  the  best  of 
the  younger  writers  at  that  time  centering  in  Boston,  among 
them  Eichard  Hildreth,  George  Lunt,  Isaac  M'Lellan,  Albert 
Pike,  Park  Benjamin,  and  Motley,  then  a  student  in  Harvard. 
This  magazine  stopped  in  the  summer  of  1831,  with  a  debt  of 
some  three  thousand  dollars. 

"  Willis  then  went  to  New  York,  where  he  joined  friends 
in  the  New  York  Mirror,  a  weekly  paper  founded  eight  years 
before  by  George  P.  Morris  and  Samuel  Woodworth.  Morris 
became  the  most  popular  song  writer  of  his  time  (your  mother 
may  recall  that  sentimental  old  ballad  of  his,  '  Near  the  Lake 
Where  Droops  the  Willow/  or  surely,  <  Woodman,  Spare  That 
Tree')-  Woodworth  was  the  author  of  the  'Old  Oaken 


JN   THE  FOREST  CITY.  149 

Bucket,'  but  nothing  else  of  like  popularity  or  merit.  He  had 
withdrawn  from  the  Mirror  when  Willis  entered.  Thus  began 
a  business  relation  and  an  ardent  friendship  between  Willis 
and  Morris,  which  continued  with  but  slight  interruption 
through  the  lives  of  both  of  them. 

"  When  Willis  removed  to  New  York  he  shook  the  dust  of 
Boston  most  impatiently  from  his  feet.  He  felt  that  it  had 
treated  him  with  rank  injustice.  '  The  mines  of  Golconda,'  he 
wrote  his  mother,  (  would  not  tempt  me  to  return  and  live  in 
Boston.'  He  had  been  subjected  to  harsh  personalities,  anony- 
mous and  open  attacks  in  the  newspapers  for  his  i  frivolity,  his 
dandyism,  and  his  conceit ; '  he  had  been  a  victim  of  slander- 
ous towntalk  about  his  debts,  his  worldliness,  his  love  of 
fashionable  society  and  of  good  clothes,  his  fondness  for  fast 
horses,  good  suppers,  and  good  fellows.  Then,  having  failed 
to  get  honorable  dismission,  which  he  sought,  from  the  Ortho- 
dox Park-Street  Church,  of  which  his  father  was  a  deacon  for 
twenty  years,  he  was  formally  excommunicated  for  absence 
from  its  communion  and  <  attendance  at  the  theatre  as  a 
spectator.' 

"  Soon  after  joining  the  Mirror  Willis  was  sent  abroad  to 
act  as  the  '  foreign  correspondent '  of  the  paper,  his  associates 
getting  together,  with  no  little  difficulty,  a  capital  of  five 
hundred  dollars  for  the  enterprise.  He  was  to  write  weekly 
letters,  at  ten  dollars  the  letter.  He  sailed  away  on  a 
merchant  brig,  and  entered  a  new  and  glittering  world  which 
charmed  him  and  animated  his  pen.  He  was  in  Europe  this 
time  for  four  years,  1832-36.  Five  or  six  months  were  spent 
in  Paris,  where  he  was  warmly  received  by  the  choice  little 
American  colony.  He  lodged  there  with  Dr.  Samuel  G.  Howe 
of  Boston,  then  on  the  threshold  of  his  noble  career  as  a 
philanthropist,  and  before  his  marriage  with  the  brilliant 
Julia  Ward  —  Julia  Ward  Howe.  Through  the  following 
winter  and  spring  Willis  was  traveling  about  Northern  Italy. 
The  next  summer  and  winter  were  passed  between  Florence, 


150  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

Home,  and  Naples.  Then  a  six  months'  cruise  up  the 
Mediterranean  was  made,  in  a  United  States  frigate,  with  a 
convoy,  by  invitation  of  the  officers..  At  Smyrna  he  left  the 
frigate  and  sailed  in  a  Yankee  brig  with  a  Maine  captain; 
Portland  bound,  as  far  as  Malta.  Thence  by  easy  stages 
through  Italy,  Switzerland,  and  France,  he  reached  England. 

"  These  were  great  and  rare  journey  ings  for  those  days,  and 
they  were  chronicled  in  the  Mirror  letters  in  charmingly  frank 
detail,  with  gay  sketches  of  life,  personages,  and  society,  under 
the  caption,  '  Pencilings  by  the  Way.'  It  was  all  of  surface 
touches,  but  of  such  liveliness,  joyousness,  and  frankness  that 
it  captivated  his  steadily  widening  public.  It  also  opened 
London  periodicals  to  his  pen.  In  England  he  remained  two 
years.  He  settled  down  in  London  lodgings  for  a  while,  writ- 
ing for  various  English  magazines,  —  among  other  things,  the 
clever  <  Philip  Slingsby '  papers,  later  collected  in  his  <  Inklings 
of  Adventure ' ;  and  sending  home  Mirror  letters,  — «  Loiterings 
of  Travel ' ;  meanwhile  he  was  making  fast  friends  among 
English  literary  folk ;  frequenting  literary  salons,  Lady  Bles- 
sington's  especially ;  country  houses ;  '  excursioning '  into 
Scottish  cities  and  the  highlands.  Later  he  prepared  collec- 
tions of  his  writings  for  English  editions. 

"  In  the  autumn  of  1835  he  married  an  English  girl,  —  Mary 
Stace,  a  daughter  of  General  William  Stace  of  Woolwich, — 
and  the  following  spring  they  sailed  on  the  homeward  voyage. 
It  was  this  departure  that  inspired  his  *  Lines  on  Leaving  Eng- 
land,' dated  English  Channel,  May,  1836,  one  of  his  few  living 
lyrics,  part  of  which  Emerson  quotes  in  the  '  Parnassus,'  with 
its  spirited  opening  :  — 

'Bright  flag  at  yonder  tapering  mast! 

Fling  out  your  field  of  azure  blue  ; 
Let  star  and  stripe  be  westward  cas^, 

And  point  as  Freedom's  eagle  flew  ! 
Strain  home !  oh  lithe  and  quivering  spars  I 

Point  home,  my  country's  flag  of  stars  I 


IN  THE  FOREST  CITY.  151 

The  wind  blows  fair  !  the  vessel  feels 

The  pressure  of  the  rising  breeze, 
And,  swiftest  of  a  thousand  keels, 

She  leaps  to  the  careering  seas  ! 
Oh,  fair,  fair  cloud  of  snowy  sail, 

In  whose  white  breast  J  seem  to  lie, 
How  oft,  when  blew   this  eastern  gale, 

I've  seen  your  semblance  in  the  sky, 
And  long'd,  with  breaking  heart  to  flee 

On  such  white  pinions  o'er  the  sea  I ' 

"  Some  time  after  his  return  Willis  set  up  at  Oswego,  New 
York,  near  the  Susquehanna,  the  rural  home  which  he  named 
'  Glenmary,'  for  his  wife.  Thence  was  sent  forth  some  of  his 
finest  work.  This  included  his  l  A  1'Abri ;  or,  the  Tent 
Pitched,'  treating  jocundly  of  nature  and  out-door  life,  and  the 
small  sights  and  happenings  about  him,  which  Lowell  so  pleas- 
antly complimented  : 

"  Few  volumes  I  know  to  read  under  a  tree 
More  truly  delightful  than  his  A  1'Abri." 

"He  also  tried  his  hand  at  play -writing,  but  with  indifferent 
success  so  far  as  performance  went,  although  after  the  publica- 
tion of  the  plays  in  London  Longfellow  wrote  in  his  diary, 
'  they  are  full  of  poetry  and  do  him  honor/  Then  he  entered 
into  another  periodical  venture,  joining  his  friend  Dr.  T.  O. 
Porter,  —  the  *  Doctor '  to  whom  the  '  Letters  from  Under  a 
Bridge  '  were  addressed,  —  in  The  Corsair.  This  was  '  a  gazette 
of  literature,  art,  dramatic  criticism,  fashion,  and  novelty/ 
which  frankly  announced  its  intention  to  '  convey '  the  fresh 
European  literature  it  desired,  inasmuch  as  Europeans  were 
freely  taking  American  publications  in  the  absence  of  inter- 
national copyright.  The  Corsair  ran  only  a  year,  without 
profit.  During  part  of  this  year  and  the  next  Willis  was  again 
abroad,  sending  letters  to  his  journal,  and  occupied  with  other 
work.  While  in  England  he  engaged  Thackeray,  then  in  the 
first  flush  of  his  popularity,  to  write  Paris  letters  for  The  Cor- 


152  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

sair.  Some  of  these  letters  Thackeray  subsequently  repro- 
duced in  his  '  Paris  Sketch  Book,'  and  all  were  republished 
after  his  death.  It  was  this  work  of  his  own  that  Thackeray 
had  in  mind  when,  afterward,  in  '  Philip/  he  made  his  hero 
contribute  letters  to  a  New  York  fashionable  journal  entitled 
'The  Gazette  of  the  Upper  Ten  Thousand,' — Willis's  phrase. 

"  The  two  or  three  years  following  Willis's  second  return 
from  Europe  were  crowded  with  work  for  various  periodicals, 
famous  successes  of  their  day,  but  long  since  faded.  The  sto- 
ries, tales  and  sketches  thus  published  were  afterward  collected 
in  his  '  Dashes  at  Life  with  a  Free  Pencil.'  This  was  the 
period  of  his  greatest  popularity,  when,  Beers  avers,  he  was 
the  best  paid,  and  in  every  way  most  successful  magazine- 
writer  that  America  had  yet  seen.  After  five  years  of  blissful 
life  at  Glenmary  he  was  obliged  to  sell  the  place,  having 
met  with  losses ;  and  one  of  the  most  pathetic  yet  charming 
papers  written  at  this  time  was  his  *  Letter  to  the  Unknown 
Purchaser  and  Next  Occupant  of  Glenmary.'  A  tender  pas- 
sage was  the  reference  to  the  grave  of  his  child  there  :  — 

"In  the  shady  depths  of  the  small  glen  above  you,  among  the  wild 
flowers  and  music,  the  music  of  the  brook  babbling  over  rocky  steps,  is  a 
spot  sacred  to  love  and  memory.  Keep  it  inviolate,  and  as  much  of  the 
happiness  of  Glenmary  as  we  can  leave  behind  stay  with  you  for  recom- 
pense." 

"  Willis  then  returned  to  New  York  to  live,  and  soon 
afterward  rejoined  Morris  in  the  New  Mirror,  which  succeeded 
the  earlier  weekly,  and  their  life-long  partnership  began. 
From  the  New  Mirror  came  the  Evening  Mirror,  a  daily 
journal,  upon  the  staff  of  which  was  Edgar  Allan  Poe,  for  a 
while,  as  critic  and  sub-editor.  Then  the  two  partners,  having 
withdrawn  from  the  Mirror,  joined  in  the  National  Press, 
from  which  evolved  the  Home  Journal,  with  James  Parton  for 
some  time  assistant  editor,  and  after  him  Thomas  Bailey 
Aldrich.  Of  each  of  these  journals  Willis  was  the  active 
editor,  and  to  them  most  of  his  later  writings  were  contributed, 


IN  THE  FOREST  CITY.  153 

taking  book  form  afterward.  In  this  editorial  work,  as  Beers 
happily  says,  he  became  a  sort  of  *  Knickerbocker  Spectator.' 

"  His  English  wife  died  in  New  York  in  the  spring  of 
1845,  and  the  following  summer  he  made  his  last  visit  abroad. 
He  was  absent  about  a  year,  and  because  of  his  ill-health  he 
called  his  writings  to  the  home  paper  <  Invalid  Letters.'  The 
autumn  after  his  return  he  married  his  second  wife.  She  was 
Cornelia  Grinnell,  a  niece  of  Congressman  Joseph  Grinnell  of 
New  Bedford,  Massachusetts,  whom  he  met  in  Washington, 
when  there  writing  letters  to  the  London  Morning  Chronicle. 
She  was  twenty  years  his  junior.  In  1850  he  returned  to 
rural  life  at  his  second  country  seat,  near  Cornwall-on-the- 
Hudson,  which  became  famous  as  '  Idlewild.'  Here  he  wrote 
his  only  novel,  <  Paul  Fane.'  And  here  ho  died.  His  body 
was  brought  to  Mount  Auburn,  in  Cambridge,  for  burial,  with 
Longfellow,  the  elder  Dana,  Holmes,  Lowell,  and  Aldrich 
among  the  pall-bearers. 

"  Willis's  favorite  brother,  Richard  Storrs  Willis  (born  in 
Boston,  1819-)  became  a  musical  editor,  author,  and  composer, 
and  attained  a  good  name  as  a  poet.  The  youngest  sister,  Sara 
Payson  Willis  (born  in  Portland,  1811  —  died  in  Brooklyn, 
N.Y.,  1872),  was  the  '  Fanny  Fern  '  once  so  well  known  in 
juvenile  and  light  magazine  literature.  These  two  were  also 
Portland  born.  <  Fanny  Fern's '  life  was  rather  meteoric. 
She  was  a  high-spirited,  merry  girl,  educated  in  Catherine  E. 
Beecher's  '  Young  Ladies'  Seminary,'  at  Hartford,  Connecticut. 
Married  young,  she  lost  her  first  husband  after  twelve  years 
of  wedded  life,  and  was  left  with  two  children  and  little 
means.  From  her  second  husband,  with  whom  her  union  was 
unhappy,  she  was  finally  divorced.  He  third  husband  was 
James  Parton.  Her  relations  with  her  brother  Nathaniel 
grew  strained  in  later  life,  and  she  bitterly  attacked  him  in 
her  story  of  'Ruth  Hall,'  published  in  1854.  Her  most 
successful  books  were  '  Fern  Leaves,'  t  Fresh  Leaves,'  and  her 
second  novel,  '  Rose  Clark.'  " 


154  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

We  spent  this  night  at  the  Preble  House,  which  stands 
where  Commodore  Treble's  mansion  stood.  Percy  selected 
this  hostlery  rather  than  one  of  the  grander  and  newer 
hotels,  because,  he  said,  his  father  used  to  stop  here  when 
passing  through  Portland  on  the  summer  journey  ings  to  the 
Maine  coast,  and  had  talked  about  the  cheery  outlook  upon  the 
street  in  the  gloaming,  from  its  front  piazza. 


X. 

IN   MAINE'S  CHIEF  COLLEGE   TOWN. 

College  days  of  Longfellow  and  Hawthorne. — Where  "Uncle  Toin's 
Cabin"  was  written. — Story  of  the  execution. — Mrs.  Stowe's 
"vision." — Longfellow's  first  professorship.  —  Poems  written  in 
Brunswick.  —  Longfellow's  last  visit  to  his  Alma  Mater.  —  "  Morituri 
Salutamus."  —The  farewell  gathering  of  the  surviving  classmates.  — 
Footprints  of  Hawthorne.  — The  Abbott  brothers,  Jacob,  John  S. 
C.  and  Gorham  I). —Story  of  the  "  Hollo  Books"  and  their  com- 
panions. —  Birthplace  of  "  Artemus  Ward."  —  His  career  recalled. 

THE  next  morning  we  journeyed  down  to  Brunswick,  the 
beautiful  college  town  on  the  Androscoggin,  with  its  memories 
of  Longfellow  and  Hawthorne  as  Bowdoin  College  boys,  and  of 
Harriet  Beecher  Stowe  and  "  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin."  It  is  a 
railroad  ride  of  about  an  hour  from  Portland,  through  cheerful 
towns  and  piney  ways  and  picturesque  country  that  delighted 
Percy's  eye. 

But  the  town  itself,  with  the  river  curving  about  it,  "as  if 
with  a  gentle  caress,"  the  broad  shaded  streets  and  pleasant 
mall,  the  college  buildings  and  the  college  yard  with  its  "  hedge 
of  lofty  trees,"  the  old-type  mansion-houses  embowered  in 
green,  —  this  most  impressed  my  companion.  The  day  and 
the  place  invited  to  stroll  and  loiter.  So  we  wandered  leisurely 
along  the  shady  ways  and  about  the  college  grounds,  in  the 
footprints,  as  Percy  liked  to  imagine,  of  Longfellow  and 
Hawthorne. 

We  came  upon  the  house  in  which  Longfellow  the  student 
roomed,  and  then  upon  that  which  Longfellow  the  professor 
occupied,  both  pleasant  dwellings  pleasantly  placed.  The 
former  was  doubly  distinguished  as  the  home  of  the  Stowes 
during  their  residence  in  Brunswick,  where  "Uncle  Toin's 

155 


156 


L1TEHAUY  PILGRIMAGES. 


IN  MAINE'S   CHIEF  COLLEGE    TOWN.  157 

Cabin  "  was  written.  We  were  told  that  in  Longfellow's  col- 
lege days  it  was  the  home  of  the  minister  of  the  old  church, 
Parson  Titcomb.  Longfellow  and  his  brother,  two  years  his 
senior  and  in  the  same  class  with  him,  shared  a  single  room  on 
the  second  floor.  According  to  Samuel  Longfellow's  description, 
it  was  a  very  plainly  furnished  room,  embellished  only  with 
bombazine  window  curtains  and  a  set  of  card-racks  painted  by 
the  boys'  sister ;  and  in  winter  the  chill  was  but  partly  taken 
off  by  a  wood  fire  in  an  open  grate.  On  the  door  of  the  closet 
young  Longfellow  marked  an  image  of  a  boy  about  his  own 
age,  which  he  used  to  attack  vigorously  with  the  leathern 
gauntlet  on  his  fists,  for  exercise  when  the  heavy  snow 
out  doors  prevented  long  walks.  "This  is  a  very  splendid 
classick  amusement,"  he  wrote  home,  "  and  I  have  already  be- 
come quite  skilful  as  a  pugilist." 

"  Longfellow  came  to  college  at  the  beginning  of  the  second 
term,"  I  chatted  as  Percy  looked  about  the  place,  "  his  first  year's 
studies  having  been  pursued  at  home,  owing  to  his  extreme 
youth.  He  was  but  fourteen  when  he  passed  the  entrance 
examinations.  At  Bowdoin  he  wrote  a  number  of  poems 
and  some  prose,  which  found  place  in  several  periodical  publi 
cations.  The  productions  of  his  first  year  were  published  in 
the  Portland  papers.  His  subsequent  prose  articles  were 
accepted  first  by  the  American  Monthly  Magazine  of  Phila- 
delphia ;  while  his  poems  appeared  in  the  United  States  Lite- 
rary Gazette,  an  admirable  Boston  journal  of  literature,  started 
in  1824  under  the  editorship  of  Theophilus  Parsons,  son  of 
that  Judge  Theophilus  Parsons  of  whom  we  heard  in  New- 
buryport.  Seventeen  of  these  poems  were  the  work  of  one 
year,  and  being  pretty  widely  copied  in  other  journals  they 
brought  the  youthful  writer  a  fair  reputation  before  his 
twentieth  year. 

"  What  sort  of  a  fellow  was  Longfellow  in  college  ? n 
Percy  asked.  "  Was  he  a  grind  ?  " 

"  Classmates  of  his  have  described  him  as  companionable. 


158  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

He  was  a  faithful  student,  but  not  too  devoted  to  his  books. 
Professor  Packard  remembers  him  as  an  attractive  youth,  of 
well-bred  manners  and  bearing.  His  was  an  ambitious  class. 
It  came  in  only  a  year  after  Maine  was  separated  from  Massa- 
chusetts and  erected  into  an  independent  state,  and  state  pride 
inspired  some  at  least  of  its  members  to  good  report  of  their 
college.  It  was  composed  of  excellent  material,  including 
with  Longfellow  and  Hawthorne,  John  S.  C.  Abbott,  afterward 
the  historical  writer ;  George  B.  Cheever,  later  on  the  eminent 
clergyman  and  litterateur  of  Salem,  Massachusetts,  whose 
1  Deacon  Giles's  Distillery,'  a  temperance  tract,  brought  him 
wide  reputation  and  a  term  in  Salem  jail,  for  <  Deacon  Giles ' 
was  a  veritable  person ;  Horatio  Bridge,  subsequently  Com- 
modore Bridge  ;  and  the  sons  of  Chief  Justice  Mellen  of  Port- 
land, of  Jeremiah  Mason  of  Newburyport,  and  of  Commodore 
Preble.  It  numbered  thirty-eight  members,  and  Longfellow 
ranked  fourth." 

The  association  of  the  Stowes  with  this  house  was  now  re- 
called. It  began,  I  remarked,  with  the  appointment  of  Pro- 
fessor Stowe  to  the  Collins  professorship  of  Natural  and  Revealed 
Religion,  upon  the  establishment  of  .that  chair  in  the  college, 
in  1849.  They  had  been  living  here  about  two  years  when 
Mrs.  Stowe  engaged  in  her  greatest  work.  And  then  I  repeated 
the  oft-told  story  of  its  execution  in  this  wise. 

"Mrs.  Stowe,  with  others  of  the  Beecher  family,  were 
greatly  moved  by  the  murder  of  Elijah  P.  Lovejoy,  editor  of  the 
anti-slavery  paper  The  Observer,  in  Alton,  Illinois,  in  1837  ;  and 
later  by  the  passage  of  the  Fugitive  Slaw  Act  of  1850  with  its 
exciting  results.  Her  brother  Edward  Beecher,  then  minister 
of  the  Salem  Street  Church  in  Boston,  had  been  especially  out- 
raged by  the  Alton  tragedy ;  for  when  living  in  Illinois  he  had 
been  an  intimate  friend  and  supporter  of  Lovejoy  (who,  by 
the  way,  was  a  native  of  Maine,  born  in  the  town  of  Albion). 
In  his  Boston  household  these  and  kindred  matters  were  sub- 
jects of  indignant  discussion,  and  warm  letters  upon  them 


IN  MAINE'S   CHIEF  COLLEGE    TOWN.  159 

passed  between  Mrs.  Beecher  and  Mrs.  Stowe.  At  length 
Mrs.  Beecher  wrote:  'Now,  Hattie,  if  I  could  use  a  pen 
as  you  can  I  would  write  something  that  would  make  the 
whole  nation  feel  what  an  accursed  thing  slavery  is.'  Mrs. 
Stowe  read  this  letter  aloud  to  her  family ;  and  when  she  came 
to  the  passage  quoted,  she  l  rose  up  from  her  chair,  crushing 
the  letter  in  her  hand,  and  with  an  expression  on  her  face  that 
stamped  itself  on  her  child '  (her  son,  the  Rev.  C.  E.  Stowe, 
editor  of  her  (  Life  and  Letters ')  exclaimed,  <  I  will  write 
something.  I  will,  if  I  live.'  The  work,  however,  was  not 
immediately  begun,  for  family  cares  interfered.  But  one  Sun- 


HOUSE    IN    WHICH  "  UNCLE    TOM'S    CABIN"    WAS 
WRITTEN. 

day  in  February,  1851,  when  at  the  communion  service  in  the 
college  church,  Mrs.  Stowe  experienced  what  she  has  called 
a  vision : 

*  Suddenly  like  the  unrolling  of  a  picture,  the  death  of  "  Uncle  Tom  " 
passed  before  her  mind.  So  strongly  was  she  affected  that  it  was  with 
difficulty  she  could  keep  from  weeping  aloud.  Immediately  upon  return- 
ing home  she  took  pen  and  paper  and  wrote  out  the  vision  which  had 
been,  as  it  were,  blown  into  her  mind  as  by  the  rushing  of  a  mighty 
wind.  Gathering  her  family  about  her  she  read  what  she  had  written. 


160  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

Her  two  little  ones  of  ten  and  twelve  years  of  age  broke  into  convulsions 
of  weeping,  one  of  them  saying  through  his  sobs,  "  O,  mamma  !  slavery 
is  the  most  cruel  thing  in  the  world."  Thus  "Uncle  Tom"  was  ushered 
into  the  world,  and  it  was  ...  a  cry,  an  immediate,  an  involuntary 
expression  of  deep,  impassioned  feeling.' 

"  The  original  scheme  was  a  magazine  tale  of  about  twelve 
chapters,  but  it  grew  into  book  proportions  as  it  developed. 
Its  serial  publication  in  the  National  Era  began  in  June,  1851, 
and  ran  to  April  of  the  following  year.  Mrs.  Stowe  wrote  a 
few  chapters  in  Edward  Beecher's  study  in  Boston,  during  a 
visit  to  that  city,  and  read  them  aloud,  as  composed,  to  her 
brother  and  his  wife.  The  serial  publication  brought  her  three 
hundred  dollars.  Meanwhile  a  Boston  publisher,  John  P.  Jewett, 
had  made  overtures  for  the  issue  of  the  story  in  book  form,  pro- 
posing a  joint  arrangement  by  which  Professor  and  Mrs.  Stowe 
should  share  with  him  the  expense  of  its  publication  and  take 
a  half  share  of  the  profits.  This  Professor  Stowe  declined 
(Mrs.  Stowe  left  the  business  to  him  to  handle,  having  herself 
little  faith  in  the  further  success  of  the  work  as  a  book)  for 
the  reason  that  neither  he  nor  his  wife  had  the  means  to 
warrant  the  venture.  Finally  an  agreement  was  effected  on 
the  basis  of  a  ten  per  cent  royalty  to  the  author  on  the  sales. 
And  there  was  no  more  astonished  person  in  the  country  than 
Mrs.  Stowe  when  she  learned  that  three  thousand  copies  of 
'  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin '  were  sold  the  very  first  day  of  its 
publication,  and  when  she  received  on  the  sales  in  three 
months  a  royalty  of  ten  thousand  dollars. 

"  '  Uncle  Tom '  was  Mrs.  Stowe's  third  book  ;  her  first  being 
a  school  geography  published  in  1832  in  the  West,  and  her  sec- 
ond, the  story  of  '  Mayflower,'  published  by  the  Harpers." 

Passing  next  to  the  other  Longfellow  house,  we  took  up 
again  the  thread  of  the  poet's  Brunswick  life. 

"  It  is  interesting  to  note,"  I  observed,  "  that  as  to  his  life- 
profession  Longfellow  knew  his  mind  from  the  beginning. 
When  a  sophomore  he  wrote  to  his  father,  who  desired  him  to 


IN  MAINE'S   CHIEF  COLLEGE   TOWN.  161 

t 

pursue  the  law :  '  The  fact  is  —  and  I  will  not  disguise  it  in 
the  least,  for  I  think  I  ought  not,  —  the  fact  is  I  most  eagerly 
aspire  after  future  eminence  in  literature;  my  whole  soul 
burns  most  ardently  for  it,  and  every  earthly  thought  centres 
in  it.'  His  theme  in  the  graduating  exercises  of  his  class,  in 
which  he  had  the  third  English  oration,  was  in  line  with  his 
cherished  thought :  '  Our  Native  Writers.' 

"  When  shortly  after  his  graduation  he  was  selected  for 
the  newly  established  chair  of  Modern  Languages  and  Litera- 
ture in  the  college,  a  way  to  his  ambition  most  opportunely 
opened.  He  postponed  the  beginning  of  this  work,  however, 
in  order  that  he  might  qualify  himself  more  thoroughly  for 
the  position  by  study  of  European  languages  on  their  native 
soil.  This  was  before  transatlantic  steamship  days,  which  did 
not  begin  till  the  late  thirties,  and  it  was  deemed  best  for  him 
to  wait  until  summer  to  make  the  voyage  to  Europe.  The 
autumn  and  winter  before  he  sailed  were  passed  at  the  Port- 
land home,  in  reading  Blackstone  to  please  his  father,  and  in 
literary  pursuits  to  please  himself.  A  little  room  adjoining 
his  father's  house-office  was  his  <  study.'  Three  years  were 
spent  abroad,  and  at  the  opening  of  the  college  year  of  1829 
he  assumed  the  professorship.  He  held  the  chair  for  five  and 
a  half  years,  popular  with  the  students,  and  in  high  standing 
as  an  instructor.  At  the  same  time  he  also  served  as  librarian 
of  the  college,  a  congenial  rather  than  a  laborious  task. 

"No,  Longfellow  did  not  take  this  house  immediately  upon 
becoming  a  professor.  For  about  two  years  he  occupied 
rooms  in  the  college  halls.  He  came  here  upon  his  marriage 
with  Mary  Potter  in  1831,  when  they  first  set  up  housekeeping. 
She  was  a  daughter  of  Judge  Barrett  Potter  of  Portland,  his 
father's  friend  and  neighbor.  To  her  he  alludes  in  his  <  Foot- 
steps of  Angels '  — 

4  ...  The  Being  Beauteous 
Who  unto  my  youth  was  given, 
More  than  all  things  else  to  love  me.' 


162  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

I 

"  Of  the  house  in  their  first  season  of  its  occupancy  Long- 
fellow has  given  this  summer-morning  picture 

u  *  I  can  almost  fancy  myself  in  Spain,  the  morning  is  so  soft  and 
beautiful.  The  tessellated  shadow  of  the  honeysuckle  lies  motionless 
upon  my  study  floor,  as  if  it  were  a  figure  in  the  carpet ;  and  through  the 
open  window  comes  the  fragrance  of  the  wild  brier  and  the  mock  orange. 
The  birds  are  carolling  in  the  trees,  and  their  shadows  flit  across  the 
window  as  they  dart  to  and  fro  in  the  sunshine  ;  while  the  murmur  of  the 
bees,  the  cooing  of  doves  from  the  eaves,  and  the  whirring  of  the  little 
humming-bird  that  has  its  nest  in  the  honeysuckle,  send  up  a  sound  of 
joy  to  meet  the  rising  sun.1 

"  The  study  was  a  room  on  the  first  floor  at  the  right  of 
the  entrance.  Here  the  poet  wrote  the  first  numbers  of  his 
'  Outre-Mer :  a  Pilgrimage  beyond  the  Sea/  suggestive  of 
Irving,  which  was  started  under  the  title  of  (  The  School- 
master7 in  Buckingham's  Boston  monthly,  the  first  New 
England  Magazine. 

"  Longfellow  .left  Brunswick  upon  his  appointment  to  the 
chair  of  modern  languages  at  Harvard,  which  his  friend 
George  Ticknor  had  resigned  in  1834.  There,  as  here,  his 
assumption  of  his  professorship  was  postponed  till  he  had 
studied  further  in  Europe.  This  time  his  attention  was  given 
especially  to  the  languages  of  Northern  Europe.  He  spent  a 
summer  in  Norway  and  Sweden,  and  an  autumn  and  winter 
in  Holland  and  Germany.  At  Rotterdam,  in  November,  1835, 
affliction  came  upon  him  in  the  sudden  death  of  his  wife,  who 
had  accompanied  him  on  his  travels.  A  year  later  he  returned, 
and  at  once  entered  upon  the  Harvard  work.  Then  began  his 
life  in  Cambridge,  which  continued  to  his  death." 

A  word  was  here  added  as  to  Longfellow's  last  visit  to  his 
alma  mater,  and  then  our  talk  turned  to  Hawthorne's  college 
days  at  Bowdoin. 

"  This  farewell  visit  was  in  1875,  the  fiftieth  anniversary  of 
his  class,  when  he  read  his  sublime  '  Morituri  Salutamus,'  with 
its  now  familiar  opening  lines  and  picture  of  the  college  town 
of  his  youth : 


IN  MAINE'S   CHIEF  COLLEGE   TOWN.  163 

* «« O  Caesar,  we  who  are  about  to  die 
Salute  you  !"  was  the  gladiator's  cry 
In  the  arena,  standing  face  to  face 
With  death  and  with  the  Roman  populace. 

O  ye  familiar  scenes,  —  ye  groves  of  pine, 
That  once  were  mine  and  are  no  longer  mine,  — 
Thou  river,  widening  through  the  meadows  green 
To  the  vast  sea,  so  near  and  yet  unseen,— 
Ye  halls  in  whose  seclusion  and  repose 
Phantoms  of  fame,  like  exhalations,  rose, 
And  vanished,  —  we  who  are  about  to  die, 
Salute  you;  earth  and  air  and  sea  and  sky, 
And  the  Imperial  Sun  that  scatters  down 
His  sovereign  splendors  upon  grove  and  town  ! ' 

"  The  scene  in  the  old  church  when  the  now  venerable  poet 
saluted  these  scenes  of  his  youth,  and  the  instructors,  —  of 
whom  all  save  one,  Professor  Packard,  had  died,  —  the  stu- 
dents, who  filled  the  seats  that  he  and  his  classmates  had  occu- 
pied, and  finally  his  classmates,  — 

4  Against  whose  familiar  names  not  yet 
The  fatal  asterisk  of  death  is  set,  — 1 

has  been  tenderly  described  by  one  of  this  little  band,  the  Kev. 
Dr.  David  Shepley.  Just  before  leaving  for  their  homes  these 
aged  classmates  gathered  in  a  retired  college  room  for  the  last 
time  and  talked  together  a  half  hour  as  of  old.  '  Then/  con- 
tinues the  narrative,  *  going  forth  and  standing  for  a  moment 
once  more  under  the  branches  of  the  old  tree,  in  silence  we 
took  each  other  by  the  hand  and  separated,  knowing  well  that 
Brunswick  would  not  again  witness  a  gathering  of  the  class 
of  1825."' 

We  could  trace  fewer  footprints  of  Hawthorne  than  of 
Longfellow  in  the  modern  town.  Percy  had  read,  or  been 
told,  that  during  his  college  days  our  romancer  roomed  in  a 
house  with  a  stairway  on  the  outside  leading  to  the  second 
story.  This  house  was  in  the  village  opposite  the  home  of 


164  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

Professor  Cleaveland.  Hawthorne  lived  here,  however,  only 
through  his  last  two  years.  He  roomed  alone,  but  his  class- 
mate Bridge,  afterward  his  life-long  friend,  boarded  with  him 
at  the  family  table.  When  he  first  came  to  the  college  he 
took  a  room  with  his  chum  Mason  —  Jeremiah  Mason's  son  — 
in  Maine  Hall,  where  they  remained  till  the  burning  of  the 
building  in  March,  1822.  From  this  disaster  they  fortunately 
saved  their  effects,  Hawthorne  suffering  only  a  torn  coat; 
"  luckily,"  he  afterward  wrote  his  sister,  "  it  happened  to  be 
my  old  one."  Thereafter,  till  Maine  Hall  was  rebuilt,  they 
roomed  in  the  large  house  opposite  the  President's  house.  They 
occupied  room  No.  19  in  the  new  Maine  Hall  in  their  sopho- 
more year. 

"  Was  Hawthorne  at  all  chummy  with  the  other  fellows,  or 
did  he  keep  by  himself  ?  "  Percy  asked. 

"Bridge,  in  his  i Personal  Recollections'  of  him,  best  answers 
your  question.  Although  taciturn  he  was  '  invariably  cheer- 
ful with  his  chosen  friends,  and  there  was  much  more  of  fun 
and  frolic  in  his  disposition  than  his  published  writings  indi- 
cate.' His  manner  was  self-respecting  and  reserved.  He  was 
'  neither  morose  nor  sentimental.'  Bridge  describes  him  in 
personal  appearance  ( a  slender  lad,  with  a  massive  head,  dark, 
brilliant  and  most  expressive  eyes,  heavy  eyebrows,  and  a 
profusion  of  dark  hair.'  His  figure  was  '  somewhat  singular, 
owing  to  his  carrying  his  head  a  little  on  one  side ;  but  his 
walk  was  square  and  firm.' 

"  He  was  less  fond  of  the  simple  college  sports  of  those 
days  (although  ,he  took  some  part  in  them)  than  of  long  walks 
through  the  pine  forest,  and  of  hunting,  fishing,  and  musing. 
In  his  dedication  of  the  '  Snow  Image '  to  Bridge,  who  first  ex- 
pressed faith  in  him  as  a  writer  of  fiction,  and  later  helped  him 
to  public  recognition,  he  gives  pleasant  glimpses  of  this  college 
life.  He  pictures  himself  and  his  friend  as  lads  together  at 
the  country  college,  i  gathering  blueberries  in  study  hours 
under  those  tall,  academic  pines,  or  watching  the  great  logs  as 


IN  MAINE'S   CHIEF  COLLEGE    TOWN.  165 

they  tumbled  along  the  current  of  the  Androscoggin,  or  shoot- 
ing pigeons  or  gray  squirrels  in  the  woods,  or  bat-fowling  in 
the  summer  twilight,  or  catching  trout  in  that  shady  little 
stream  which,  I  suppose,  is  still  wandering  riverward  through 
the  forest,  though  you  and  I  will  never  cast  a  line  in  it  again  ; 
two  idle  lads  in  short  (as  we  need  not  fear  to  acknowledge 
now),  doing  a  hundred  things  that  the  Faculty  never  heard  of, 
or  else  it  would  have  been  the  worse  for  us/ 

"  And  in  '  Fanshawe  '  he  describes  under  the  name  of  <  Har- 
ley  College '  the  Bowdoin  of  this  time  : 

'"If  this  institution  did  not  offer  all  the  advantages  of  elder  and 
prouder  seminaries,  its  deficiencies  were  compensated  to  its  students  by 
the  inculcation  of  regular  habits,  and  of  a  deep  and  awful  sense  of  reli- 
gion, which  seldom  deserted  them  in  their  course  through  life.  The  mild 
and  gentle  rule  .  .  .  was  more  destructive  to  vice  than  a  sterner  sway  ; 
and  though  youth  was  never  without  its  follies,  they  have  seldom  been 
more  harmless  than  they  were  here.'  " 

Many  of  "  those  tall  academic  pines  "  of  Hawthorne's  de- 
light long  since  fell  under  the  axe,  and  his  favorite  paths  are 
no  more  to  be  traced  ;  but  we  came  upon  the  "  shadowy  little 
stream  "  singing  along  under  the  fitting  modern  name  of  "  Haw. 
thorne  Brook." 

"  Did  Hawthorne's  genius,  like  Longfellow's,  begin  to  show 
itself  while  he  was  a  college  man  ?  "  Percy  asked  as  we  were 
again  strolling  over  the  campus. 

"  No.  But  in  his  confidences  with  his  friend  Bridge  it  was 
evident  what  direction  his  thoughts  were  taking.  Though  he 
had  yet  written  nothing  for  publication,  the  studies  in  which 
he  excelled  revealed  the  talent  that  was  in  him.  In  English 
and  Latin  composition  his  superiority  was  acknowledged  by 
professors  and  students  alike.  Professor  Packard  has  said  of 
his  themes  that  they  were  written  in  the  sustained,  finished 
style  that  gave  to  his  mature  productions  their  inimitable 
charm.  Metaphysics  he  disliked,  and  mathematics  he  abhorred. 
His  ambition  to  be  an  author  he  had  expressed  when  a  school- 


166  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

boy  in  Salem,  Massachusetts,  where,  you  know,  he  was  born. 
'  How  would  you  like  some  day  to  see  a  whole  shelf  full  of 
books  written  by  your  son,  with  "  Hawthorne's  Works  "  printed 
on  their  backs  ?  '  he  wrote  his  mother  when  he  left  school  to 
fit  for  college  under  a  Salem  lawyer.  While  keeping  on  with 
his  preparatory  studies,  he  worked  part  of  each  day  as  clerk 
in  the  office  of  one  of  his  Uncles  Manning  (his  mother's  broth- 
ers), who  owned  a  line  of  stages.  He  found  this  task  uncon- 
genial, declaring  to  his  sister  that  i  no  man  can  be  a  poet  and 
a  book-keeper  at  the  same  time.' 

"  He  was  seventeen  when  he  came  to  Bowdoin,  with  a  mind 
awakened  by  much  miscellaneous  reading,  and  with  a  poetic 
temperament.  When  a  little  fellow  in  the  Manning  homestead 
in  Salem,  being  kept  much  in-doors  by  a  lameness  resulting 
from  an  accident  at  bat  and  ball,  he  absorbed  several  of  the 
English  classics  with  which  the  old-fashioned  library  there  was 
stored.  And  during  a  year  or  so  spent  with  his  mother  on  the 
farm  of  another  Uncle  Manning,  down  here  in  Maine,  by 
Sebago  Lake,  '  drinking  in  the  tonic  of  a  companionship  with 
untamed  nature,'  he  practiced  his  boyish  pen  in  writing  little 
sketches.  Of  this  country  life  he  wrote  long  afterward  to 
James  T.  Fields,  '  I  lived  in  Maine  like  a  bird  of  the  air,  so 
perfect  was  the  freedom  I  enjoyed.  But  it  was  there  I  first 
got  my  cursed  habits  of  solitude.' 

"  Hawthorne  ranked  eighteenth  in  his  class,  and  had  no 
'commencement  part'  because  he  had  taken  no  part  in  decla- 
mation. This  exercise  he  invariably  cut,  having  a  horror  of 
public  or  formal  speaking.  Upon  his  graduation  he  returned 
to  Salem,  and  it  was  there,  in  seclusion,  that  his  serious  work 
as  an  author  began." 

Next  we  talked  about  the  three  Abbott  brothers,  who  were 
students  here  at  this  same  period :  Jacob  Abbott  (born  1803  — 
died  1879),  the  elder,  who  wrote  the  perennial  "  Eollo  Books," 
the  "  Franconia  Stories,"  and  scores  of  other  juveniles,  the 
delight  of  the  youth  of  generations  before  Percy's ;  John 


IN  MAINE'S   CHIEF  COLLEGE    TOWN. 


167 


Stephen  Cabot  Abbott  (born  1805  — died  1877),  the  prolific 
author  of  those  popular  lives  of  kings  and  queens,  and  of  Napo- 
leon Bonaparte,  which  had  so  great  a  run  half  a  century  ago ; 
and  Gorham  Dummer  Abbott  (born  1807 — died  1874),  writer 
of  religious  books. 

We  considered  side  by  side  the  careers  of  the  brothers 
Jacob  and  John.  Both  were  natives  of  Maine,  born,  the 
elder,  in  Hallowell,  whence  comes  the  Hallowell  granite,  the 
other  in  Brunswick.  Both  were  fitted  for  Bowdoin  at  the  Hal- 


JACOB    ABBOTT    IN    HIS    PARLOR    AT   "  FEWACRES." 

lowell  Academy.  After  graduation  from  college  each  in  turn 
went  to  Andover  Hill  and  took  the  Theological  Seminary 
course ;  so  both  were  fitted  for  the  ministry.  Jacob  began 
active  life  as  a  teacher,  later  became  a  minister,  and  afterward 
devoted  himself  exclusively  to  writing.  John  began  as  a  min- 
ister, subsequently  took  up  teaching,  and  finally,  like  Jacob, 
engaged  wholly  in  authorship. 

Jacob  Abbott  was  for  a  short  time  teacher  in  the  Portland 
Academy  which  Longfellow  had  previously  attended  ;  then  he 
was  at  Amherst  College,  Massachusetts,  first  as  a  tutor,  after- 


168 


LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 


ward  as  a  professor  of  mathematics  and  mental  philosophy. 
From  there  he  went  to  Boston  and  established  a  school  for 
girls,  —  one  of  the  first  in  the  country  to  give  young  women  the 
same  standard  of  education  as  young  men,  and  unique  in  the 
principle  upon  which  it  was  conducted,  —  that  of  self-govern- 
ment, in  which  the  pupils  had  share  with  the  teachers.  And 
later,  in  New  York  City,  he  was  associated  with  John  and 
Gorham  (who  also  was  an  ordained  minister)  in  the  Abbott 
Institute,  another  "young  ladies'  school."  He  had  become  a 
minister  meanwhile,  having  been  licensed  to  preach  when  at 
Amherst ;  and  he  had  also  made  a  start  in  authorship,  having 


"  FEWACRES,"    JACOB  ABBOTT'S    COUNTRY    HOME. 

written  his  first  books,  the  "  Young  Christian  Series  "  of  juve- 
niles in  three  volumes. 

u  The  Hollo  Books"  were  begun  in  the  thirties.  They 
were  written  partly  in  Boston,  when  Mr.  Abbott  was  teaching 
school,  partly  in  Roxbury  where  he  was  pastor  of  the  Eliot 
Congregational  Church,  partly  in  New  York  and  abroad. 
Their  success  was  phenomenal,  and  "  Uncle  George "  and 
"  Hollo "  and  "  Jonas  "  became  household  familiars.  The 
series  embraced  twenty-four  volumes,  composed  of  the  distinct 


IN  MAINE'S  CHIEF  COLLEGE   TOWN.  169 

"  Rollo  Books/'  the  "  Lucy  Books,"  and  the  "  Jonas  Books,"  all 
prime  favorites  with  many  young  folk  in  their  day.  Next  the 
"  Marco  Paul  Series  "  appeared,  in  six  volumes.  Then,  most 
fascinating  of  all  to  Mr.  Abbott's  youthful  public,  the  twelve 
volumes  of  "  Franconia  Stories,"  their  scene  laid  in  the  Fran- 
conia  Notch  of  the  White  Mountains.  Then  the  "  Florence 
and  John  Stories ;  "  and  the  many-volumed  "  Harper  Story 
Books."  His  books  numbered  in  all  more  than  two  hundred, 
and  were  reproduced  in  foreign  countries.  Much  of  the  work 
of  his  later  years  was  done  in  Maine,  at  his  country  home  of 
"  Fewacres  "  in  the  rural  town  of  Farmington,  where  his  father 
had  sometime  lived,  and  where  his  sister  resided.  And  there 
he  died  at  the  age  of  seventy-six.  He  was  one  of  our  pioneer 
writers  of  the  widely  popular  order  of  juveniles,  following 
close  upon  Samuel  C.  Goodrich  (born  in  Kidgefield,  Conn., 
1793,  _  died  in  New  York  City,  1860),  with  his  "Peter  Parley  " 
books  begun  in  the  late  twenties,  which  reached  a  total  of  one 
hundred  and  sixteen  volumes. 

John  S.  C.  Abbott's  first  publication  was  the  "  Mother  at 
Home,"  a  series  of  "talks"  given  originally  in  his  parish 
when  he  was  a  minister  in  Worcester,  Massachusetts,  in  the 
thirties.  It  was  the  popularity  of  this  publication  that  de- 
termined him  to  take  up  book-making  as  a  steady  occupation 
along  with  preaching.  After  publishing  one  more  religious 
book  he  entered  valiantly  into  the  field  of  popular  history ; 
and  his  freehand  sketches  of  kings  and  queens  and  others  of 
the  purple  fell  rapidly  from  his  tireless  pen.  His  life  of 
Napoleon  Bonaparte  first  ran  as  a  serial  in  Hater's  Magazine 
in  the  early  fifties.  His  popular  history  of  our  Civil  War 
was  one  of  the  earliest  published.  Then  came  his  life  of 
Napoleon  III.  He  continued  his  preaching  and  pastoral  duties 
while  producing  his  popular  histories.  He  accomplished  a 
prodigious  amount  of  work  through  a  long  life,  due  largely  to 
his  methodical  habits  and  equable  temper.  His  writing  was 
generally  done  in  two  hours  of  the  early  morning  before  break- 


170  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

fast,  and  after  breakfast  until  early  afternoon  dinner-time. 
His  last  home  was  in  Fair  Haven,  Connecticut,  where  he  lived 
to  his  seventy-third  year. 


With  a  little  drive  in  the  country  about  Brunswick  this 
pilgrimage  ended.  And  with  our  visit  to  the  old  college  town 
ended  our  pilgrimage  to  Maine  literary  landmarks. 

We  should  have  liked  to  visit  the  birthplace  of  Charles 
Farrar  Browne  (born  1834 —  died  in  England,  1867),  whom  the 
world  knew  as  "Artemus  Ward,"  the  humorous  writer  and 
lecturer;  but  that  involved  too  long  a  journey  for  a  single 
"  landmark."  And  only  the  boyhood  of  "  Artemus  Ward " 
was  passed  in  Maine ;  his  writings  began  elsewhere.  I  recalled 
his  career,  however,  in  our  talk.  It  was  on  a  back-country 
farm  that  he  was  born,  in  the  .upper  village  of  Waterford 
toward  the  New  Hampshire  line,  set  in  an  agricultural  region 
amidst  charming  scenery.  The  village  in  his  youth,  as  he 
described  it,  contained  not  over  forty  houses  in  all.  "  But 
they  are  milk  white,  with  the  greenest  of  blinds,  and  for  the 
most  part  are  shaded  with  beautiful  elms  and  willows.  To 
the  right  of  us  is  a  mountain,  to  the  left  a  lake.  The  village 
nestles  between."  A  pleasant  picture  Percy  thought  this. 
Browne  was  a  boy  of  twelve  when  he  left  this  country  home  to 
learn  the  printer's  trade.  His  first  "  piece  "  was  published  in 
Boston,  in  Shillaber's  Carpet  Bag,  when  he  was  a  compositor 
in  its  little  office,  yet  in  his  teens.  This  "  piece  "  was  a  lively 
description  of  a  Fourth-of-July  celebration  in  Skowhegan,  the 
Maine  town  in  which  he  had  learned  his  trade.  He  wrote  it 
in  a  disguised  hand,  and  secretly  slipped  the  manuscript  into 
the  editor's  box ;  and  it  was  his  pride  next  day  to  receive  it 
with  other  "copy"  to  "set  up."  From  Boston  he  drifted 
through  the  country  westward  as  a  journeyman  printer. 

At  length  he  put  down  the  composing-stick  and  took  up 
the  pen  alone,  as  writer  of  "  funny  paragraphs  "  for  a  Toledo, 


IN  MAINE'S   CHIEF  COLLEGE    TOWN.  171 

Ohio,  paper.  Shifting  next  to  Cleveland,  he  first  made  use  of 
the  signature  of  "  Artemus  Ward  "  in  the  Plaindealer,  attached 
to  letters  concerning  a  "  Great  Moral  Show,"  and  to  humorous 
stories.  These  were  copied  by 
other  papers  and  caught  up  and 
repeated  by  traveling  minstrels 
and  circuses.  At  length  the 
popularity  of  his  productions  led 
him  to  take  the  lecture  field 
with  them.  Meanwhile  his  name 
had  become  more  familiar  in  the 
East  as  editor  of  Vanity  Fair,  a 
short-lived  comic  journal  of  New 
York.  He  started  out  with  his 
first  lecture  near  the  Christmas 
season  of  1861,  the  handbills 
announcing  simply  "Artemus 

Ward  Will  Speak  a  Piece,"  with  place  and  date.  This  was 
his  famous  lecture  on  "  The  Babes  in  the  Woods,"  the  whimsi- 
cal feature  of  which  was  its  failure  to  touch  the  subject.  His 
second  lecture  was  entitled  "Sixty  Minutes  in  Africa";  the 
third,  "  Among  the  Mormons,"  the  tickets  to  which  admitted 
"  the  Bearer  and  One  Wife."  With  these  lectures  he  made  a 
successful  tour  across  the  continent. 

In  1866  he  sailed  for  England,  where  he  soon  became 
somewhat  of  a  lion,  receiving  more  attention  than  in  his  own 
country.  He  was  made  much  of  by  the  literary  set  in 
London ;  wrote  for  Punch  ;  reproduced  his  "  Artemus  Ward  : 
His  Book,"  first  published  in  New  York  in  1862 ;  issued  other 
books;  and  lectured  to  immense  audiences.  In  the  seventh 
week  of  a  London  lecture  engagement  he  was  taken  gravely 
ill,  and  shortly  after,  close  upon  his  thirty-fourth  birthday,  he 
died.  His  body  was  brought  back  to  the  little  Maine  home- 
stead, and  lies  buried  in  the  village  cemetery  by  the  side  of 
his  father,  mother,  and  brother. 


172  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

"  While  '  Artemus  Ward's '  productions  were  not  of  so 
pronounced  literary  value  as  to  rank  him  with  the  higher 
grade  of  humorous  writers,"  I  concluded,  "their  dry  humor 
and  homely  diction  tickled  the  popular  taste,  and  brought  him 
renown  wider  than  that  which  the  finer  literary  wits  of  his 
day  achieved.'7 


The  next  day  we  drove  over  to  Bath,  and  that  night  sailed 
therefrom  by  steamer  to  Boston. 


XL 

THE    HEART    OF    ESSEX. 

Ipswich  landmarks.  —  Homes  of  Colonial  writers  and  scholars.  —  John 
Winthrop,  jun.  —  Anne  Bradstreet's  earlier  home.  —  Nathaniel  Ward, 
"The  Simple  Cobler  of  Aggawam." — Hubbard,  the  early  his- 
torian.—  John  Norton. — Thomas  Cobbett. — Nathaniel  Rogers. — 
The  progenitors  of  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson.  —  "  Gail  Hamilton's  " 
home  in  Hamilton.  —  Scene  of  "The  Witch  of  Wenhain." — 
"Peter's  Pulpit." 

THE  next  day  we  completed  our  survey  of  literary  land- 
marks east  of  Boston  with  a  pilgrimage  into  the  heart  of  old 
Essex  County  and  back  along  the  North  Shore  of  Massachu- 
setts Bay,  finishing  at  the  "  headland  height "  of  Nahant. 

It  was  a  little  journey  of  less  than  thirty  miles  from 
Boston  to  our  first  objective  point,  into  a  thrifty  country  and 
a  region  yet  retaining  some  fragments  of  those  early  New 
England  characteristics  in  which  our  writers  have  found  so 
much  for  verse  and  story.  We  went  out  by  steam  cars,  and 
returned  along  trolley  lines,  by  carriage,  and  by  steamboat  to 
our  starting-place. 

This  first  objective  point  was  Ipswich,  the  ancient  Agawam, 
that  choice  old  Essex-town  set  upon  its  hills  and  along  its 
river  winding  to  the  sea,  where  Anne  Bradstreet  began  her 
poetizing ;  and  where  Nathaniel  Ward  (born  1570  —  died  1653), 
the  versatile  parson,  compiled  the  "  Body  of  Liberties,"  the 
first  code  of  laws  in  the  Bay  Colony,  and  in  1645,  when  he 
was  severity-five,  wrote  those  shrewd  and  witty  commentaries 
of  the  "  Simple  Cobler  of  Aggawam,"  on  manners  and  cus- 
toms of  his  time.  Where,  too,  lived  the  Rev.  William  Hubbard 
(born  1621  —  died  1704),  New  England's  early  historian  j  the 

173 


174  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

Rev.  John  Norton  (born  in  England,  1606  —  died  in  Boston, 
1663),  who  wrote  the  first  Latin  book  published  in  America; 
the  Rev.  Thomas  Cobbett  (born  in  Newbury,  England,  1608  — 
died  in  Ipswich,  1685),  writer  of  more  books  in  his  time  than 
any  man  in  New  England ;  and  Thomas  Emerson,  baker,  the 
American  progenitor  of  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson. 

Old  Ipswich  folk  remark  with  just  pride,  —  I  observed  in 
the  customary  "  preliminary  talk,"  of  our  outward  trip,  —  the 
character  of  the  town's  early  settlers,  the  intellectual  caliber 
as  well  as  the  social  standing  in  the  colonial  community  of 

these  first  families.  Their 
historians  are  fond  of  quot- 
ing Edward  Johnson's 
phrase,  in  his  "  Wonder- 
WTorking  Providence  of 
Sions  Savior  in  New  Eng-. 
land,"  —  that  early  de- 
scription of  the  Bay  Col- 
ony, —  "  The  peopling  of 
this  town  is  by  men  of 
good  ranke  and  quality." 

First  there  was  the 
founder,  John  Winthrop, 
jun.  (born  16056  —  died 
1676).  He  was  eldest  son 
of  Governor  John  Win- 
throp, and  was  that  Win- 
throp who  became  the  first 
governor  of  Connecticut. 
He  was  an  accomplished 
scholar  and  the  compan- 
ion of  scholars.  He  possessed  a  library  of  more  than  a  thousand 
volumes,  one  of  the  largest  in  the  colony,  a  remnant  of  which 
still  preserved  bears  testimony  to  his  learning  and  broad  intel- 
lectual tastes,  so  those  who  have  examined  it  say.  He  was 


IN   THE  HEART  OF  ESSEX.  175 

but  twenty-seven  when  this  plantation  was  begun.  He  built 
him  a  house  among  the  earliest,  in  a  picturesque  spot  on  the 
south  side  of  the  river,  which  tradition  confidently  identifies ; 
and  this  home  he  and  his  gentle  wife  made  a  center  of  Puritan 
hospitality.  She  was  Martha  Painter,  an  old  England  minis- 
ter's daughter.  She  died  a  few  years  after  coming  here,  and 
her  dust  lies  in  an  unmarked  grave  in  the  old  town  bury  ing- 
ground.  For  his  second  wife  Winthrop  took  Elizabeth  Reade, 
step-daughter  of  the  famous  Hugh  Peters  who  met  his  fate  at 
Charing-Cross  as  one  of  the  regicides,  after  the  restoration  of 
Charles  II.  Winthrop's  son,  John  Fitz,  born  here,  became  the 
second  Governor  Winthrop  of  Connecticut.  A  daughter  mar- 
ried a  son  of  Governor  Endicott. 

Then  there  were  the  Dudleys  with  the  Bradstreets,  who 
lived  here  for  a  number  of  years  ;  the.  Saltonstalls,  —  Richard, 
son  of  Sir  Richard,  and  Muriel  Gurden,  his  wife,  whom  he 
went  back  to  England  in  one  of  the  earliest  returning  ships  to 
marry,  he  then  twenty-two,  she  eighteen;  and  the  Denisons, 
—  Daniel,  scholar  and  statesman,  first  major-general  in  the 
colony,  and  his  wife  Patience  Dudley,  Anne  Bradstreet's  sister, 
with  whom  he  fell  in  love  in  Newe  Towne  (Cambridge)  when 
the  Dudleys  were  living  there  ;  the  Symondses,  —  Samuel,  long 
time  deputy-governor,  and  his  wife  Rebekah;  the  Appletons, 
Samuel,  who  became  General  Appleton,  a  brave  Indian  fighter ; 
the  Eastons,  —  Nicholas,  later  of  Newport,  Rhode  Island,  and 
president  of  that  colony,  whose  name  is  perpetuated  in  the 
fashionable  beach  of  Newport ;  and  the  Rogers  family  of 
ministers,  whence  came  John  Rogers,  fifth  president  of  Har- 
vard College.  At  a  later  period  —  that  Joseph  Rowlandson, 
who,  for  too  freely  exercising  his  pen  in  prose  and  verse 
in  criticism  of  the  government  and  his  fellow  townsmen,  —  of 
one  of  whom  he  wrote,  "  When  he  lived  in  our  country  a  wet 
eele's  tayle  and  his  word  were  something  worth  ye  taking  hold 
of  »  —  Was  sentenced  to  be  whipped  or  pay  a  fine,  but  was  let 
off  upon  apologizing. 


176  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

Twice  Governor  John  Winthrop  visited  the  town,  making 
the  whole  distance  from  Boston  and  back  on  foot,  along  the 
narrow  trail  through  the  wilderness ;  and  evidently  thought 
these  no  extraordinary  performances.  His  first  visit  was  in 
the  second  year  of  the  settlement,  when  the  people  were 
temporarily  without  a  minister,  and  during  a  Sunday  spent 
with  them  he  "  exercised  by  way  of  prophecy,"  or,  in  modern 
term,  preached.  The  second  visit  was  four  years  later. 
Then  the  journey  out  was  more  stately,  the  people  of  the  few 
towns  along  the  way  guarding  him  on  his  progress  "  to  show 
their  respect  to  the  governor,  and  also  for  his  safety  in  regard 
it  was  expected  the  Indians  were  come  this  way  " ;  while  all 
Ipswich  turned  out  to  greet  him. 


Percy  delighted  in  the  quiet  beauty  of  Ipswich's  setting, 
and  the  serenity  of  the  venerable  town.  He  found  much  to 
charm  him  as  we  strolled  leisurely  along  the  tranquil  streets, 
across  the  Common  spreading  up  to  the  First  Church  on  a 
sightly  knoll,  over  the  Green  and  under  the  elms  before  the 
Old  South  Church,  and  by  the  river  side.  On  one  of  the 
Greens  two  lofty  elms  were  pointed  out  to  him  as  growing 
from  the  beds  of  the  whipping-post  and  the  stocks  of  colony 
days.  Opposite  the  soldiers'  monument  we  passed  the  site  of 
the  old  tavern  of  frequent  mention  by  the  chatty  Sewall  in 
his  Diary,  at  a  later  period  noted  pleasantly  in  John  Adams's 
Diary,  and  still  later  thus  attractively  sketched  by  Whittier : 

"The  tavern  was  once  renowned  throughout  New  England.  .  .  . 
During  court  time  it  is  crowded  with  jocose  lawyers,  anxious  clients, 
sleepy  jurors,  and  miscellaneous  hangers  on  ;  disinterested  gentlemen, 
who  have  no  particular  business  of  their  own  in  court,  but  who  regularly 
attend  its  sessions,  weighing  evidence,  deciding  upon  the  merits  of  a 
lawyer's  plea  or  a  judge's  charge,  getting  up  extempore  trials  upon  the 
piazza  or  in  the  bar-room  of  cases  still  involved  in  the  glorious  uncer- 
tainty of  the  law  in  the  court-house  proffering  gratuitous  legal  advice  to 


IN   THE  HEART  OF  ESSEX.  177 

irascible  plaintiffs  and  desponding  defendants,  and  in  various  other  ways 
seeing  that  the  Commonwealth  receives  no  detriment.  In  the  autumn 
old  sportsmen  make  the  tavern  their  headquarters  while  scouring  the 
marshes  for  sea-birds  ;  and  slim  young  gentlemen  from  the  city  return 
thither  with  empty  game-bags,  as  guiltless  in  respect  to  the  snipes  and 
wagtails  as  Winkle  was  in  the  matter  of  the  rooks,  after  his  shooting 
excursion  at  Dingle  Dell." 

On  a  cross  street  running  river-ward  we  came  upon  the 
Rev.  John  Norton's  house,  later  the  home  of  the  Rev.  Thomas 


THE     ANCIENT     NORTON     HOUSE. 

Cobbett.  We  found  it  bearing  well  its  load  of  years,  —  two 
and  two-thirds  centuries,  —  and  having  the  good  fortune  of  an 
occupant  with  a  lively  appreciation  of  its  dignity  and  historic 
worth.  The  front  door  opened  at  our  knock ;  and  Percy 
viewed  the  massive  central  chimney,  the  great  fireplace,  the 
deep  ovens,  the  broad  low-studded  rooms  with  the  exposed 
hewn  oak  beams.  He  tarried  in  the  "best  room/'  where 
distinguished  personages  traveling  this  way  were  entertained  ; 
for  this,  he  was  reminded,  was  the  minister's  house,  Norton 
being  the  second  minister  of  Ipswich,  and  Cobbett  the  third. 
Once,  if  not  oftener,  Governor  Endicott  was  received  here. 
Cotton  Mather  was  a  welcome  guest.  And  here,  with  his 


178  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

retinue  of  braves,  came  Mogg  Megone  of  Agamenticus  (York, 
Maine),  that  Indian  chief  of  Whittier's  earliest  narrative 
poem,  when  on  his  way  to  Boston  in  1676  during  King 
Philip's  War.  One  of  John  Norton's  sons  lost  his  life  by 
drowning;  and  at  the  funeral  here,  so  runs  the  record,  five 
barrels  of  rum  were  consumed  by  the  mourning  town-folk  in 
attendance. 

Along  the  river  we  followed  a  foot-path  close  to  the  water 
side.  Near  the  low-arched  bridge  carrying  a  highway  across, 
we  saw  another  early  seventeenth  century  house  which  tradition 
says  was  Winthrop's.  About  the  South  Church  Green  were 
more  distinctively  literary  landmarks,  indicated  by  an  inscribed 
tablet  in  front  of  the  meetinghouse,  set  up  by  the  local  his- 
torical society.  According  to  this  authority,  Nathaniel  Ward's 
house  stood  on  the  east  side  of  the  Green ;  that  of  William 
Hubbard,  the  minister-historian,  a  few  rods  eastward  near  the 
river ;  that  of  Richard  Saltonstall,  on  the  south  side ;  that  of 
Nathaniel  Rogers,  the  first  Parson  Rogers  of  Ipswich,  on  the 
west  side ;  and  that  of  Ezekiel  Cheever,  the  first  schoolmaster 
(afterward  schoolmaster  at  Boston),  with  the  schoolhouse  ad- 
joining, near  Nathaniel  Ward's.  Percy  also  took  note  from 
this  tablet  that  "  The  expedition  against  Quebec,  Benedict 
Arnold  in  command,  Aaron  Burr  in  the  ranks,  marched  by  this 
spot  September  15,  1775." 

Of  the  house  sites  he  naturally  took  most  interest  in  that 
of  Nathaniel  Ward,  since  Ward's  work,  as  he  had  been  told, 
was  the  "Ipswich  classic.'7  "Was  the  *  Simple  Cobler  of 
Aggawam'  written  in  the  house  here  ?  "  he  asked.  Presum- 
ably ;  and  perhaps  in  the  room  where  upon  the  mantel-piece 
was  inscribed  the  cheerful  minister's  motto :  "  Sobrie,  Justie, 
Pie,  Laete."  Although  Ward  was  minister  —  the  first  minister 
—  of  Ipswich  only  about  three  years,  he  remained  in  town 
three  or  four  years  longer,  and  then  removed  to  Haverhill,  of 
which  he  was  a  founder. 

Tradition  points  vaguely  to  the  site  of  Anne  Bradstreet's 


IN   THE  HEART  OF  ESSEX.  179 

house;  and  to  that  of  Thomas  Emerson,  the  first  of  Ralph 
Waldo  Emerson's  American  ancestors,  here  settled  six  years 
after  the  plantation  at  Agawam  began,  which  was  in  1634. 
Of  the  Ipswich  Emersons  the  only  definite  landmarks  are  the 
graves  in  the  old  bury  ing-ground. 

On  our  rambling  way  to  the  bury  ing-ground  we  crossed  the 
stone-arched  Choate  Bridge,  built  in  1704,  which  the  wiseacres 
expected  to  see  crushed  into  the  river  with  the  first  test  of  a 
loaded  team,  but  the  glory  of  which,  nevertheless,  a  local  poet 
sung  at  its  finish : 

*'  Behold  this  bridge  of  lime  and  stone, 
The  like  before  was  never  known 
For  beauty  and  magnificence, 
Considering  the  small  expense." 

In  the  old  burying-ground,  as  we  loitered  about  the  worn 
mounds,  deciphering  historic  names  on  many  a  mossy  stone 
and  lingering  longest  by  the  Emerson  graves,  we  talked  of  the 
emigrant  Emerson,  and  traced  the  line  from  him  to  the  Con- 
cord seer. 

Beyond  the  facts  that  Thomas  Emerson,  by  trade  a  baker, 
was  from  near  Durham,  England,  and  was  among  the  earliest 
comers  to  the  Bay  Colony,  little  of  him  could  be  told  Percy. 

"  It  would  be  interesting  to  know  what  sort  of  mail  he 
was,"  Percy  thought. 

"  We  may  safely  assume,"  I  ventured,  "  that  he  was  a  man 
of  worth  and  standing,  for  he  sent  one  son,  and  possibly  two, 
to  college  to  be  trained  for  the  ministry.  He  was  a  progenitor 
of  ministers.  Of  his  sons,  Joseph,  Ralph  Waldo's  great-great- 
great-grandfather,  was  the  pioneer  minister  of  Mendon,  an 
interior  Massachusetts  town,  and  barely  escaped  death  when 
the  village  was  burned  by  the  Indians  in  King  Philip's  War. 
This  Joseph  married  Elizabeth  Bulkeley,  granddaughter  of  the 
first  minister  of  Concord,  and  daughter  of  the  second;  and 
thus  early  the  identification  of  the  Emersons  with  Concord 
began.  Joseph  and  Elizabeth's  son  Edward,  Ralph  Waldo's 


180  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

great-great-grandfather,  was  a  merchant ;  but  he  was  •  near  the 
1  cloth,'  for  the  headstone  at  his  grave  records  that  he  was 
'  sometime  deacon  of  the  church  at  Newbury.'  Edward's  wife 
Rebecca,  daughter  of  Cornelius  Waldo,  brought  the  <  beloved 
name  of  Waldo '  into  the  Emerson  family. 

"  The  ministerial  line  was  resumed  with  their  son  Joseph, 
Ralph  Waldo's  great-grandfather.  He  was  long  minister  of 
Maiden,  near  Boston,  and  <  the  greatest  student  in  the  country,' 
his  grand-daughter  averred.  He  also  married  a  minister's  daugh- 
ter, —  Mary  Moody,  daughter  of  '  Father  Moody,  of  Agamen- 
ticus,'  most  zealous  of  preachers  and  most  charitable  of  men. 
Of  him  our  Emerson  has  related  that  <  when  the  offended  parish- 
ioners, wounded  by  his  pointed  preaching,  would  rise  to  go  out 
of  church,  he  cried  out,  "Come  back,  you  graceless  sinner, 
come  back ! "  When  they  began  to  fall  into  ill  customs  and 
ventured  into  the  alehouse  on  Saturday  night,  the  valiant 
pastor  went  in  after  them,  collared  the  sinners,  dragged  them 
forth,  and  sent  them  home  with  rousing  admonitions.'  To 
which  anecdote  Mr.  Cabot,  Emerson's  biographer,  has  added, 
'  He  gave  away  his  wife's  only  pair  of  shoes  from  her  bedside 
to  a  poor  woman  who  came  to  the  house,  one  frosty  morning, 
barefoot.  When  his  wife,  thinking  to  restrain  a  profuseness  of 
almsgiving  which  his  scanty  salary  could  ill  afford,  made  him 
a  purse  that  could  not  be  opened  without  a  tedious  manipula- 
tion, he  gave  away  purse  and  all  to  the  next  applicant.' 

"  Joseph  and  Mary  Emerson  had  a  numerous  family,  of 
whom  three  sons  became  ministers ;  and  the  youngest  of  these, 
William  Emerson,  was  Ralph  Waldo's  grandfather.  He  was 
the  patriot  minister  of  Concord,  who  began  his  pastoral  work 
as  assistant  to  Dr.  Daniel  Bliss  there ;  succeeded  to  the  pas- 
torate upon  the  good  old  minister's  death ;  married  his  daugh- 
ter Phebe  ;  built  the  Manse ;  had  a  hand  in  the  Concord  fight ; 
and  died  in  the  service  at  thirty-three  while  chaplain  in  the 
army  at  Ticonderoga.  His  son  William,  Ralph  Waldo's  father, 
was  minister  first  in  the  little  town  of  Harvard,  a  dozen  miles 


IN    THE   HEART   OF  ESSEX.  181 

from  Concord,  and  afterward  of  the  First  Church  of  Boston. 
It  was  in  Boston  that  he  married  '  the  pious  and  amiable  Ruth 
Haskins,'  as  he  recorded  in  his  diary  at  the  time ;  and  there 
Ralph  Waldo  was  born  in  1803,  their  third  son." 

Our  tour  of  the  town  finished  with  a  drive  toward  "  Heart- 
break Hill,"  overlooking  the  sea,  which  derives  its  melancholy 
name  from  an  old  legend  of  an  Indian  maid  who  "watched 
from  the  hill-top  her  life  away  "  for  the  sailor  lover  that  never 
returned,  —  the  subject  of  one  of  Celia  Thaxter's  poems. 

Then  boarding  an  out-going  trolley-car  we  sped  on  our 
backward  course  through  other  old  Essex  towns. 


Our  first  stop  was  at  Hamilton,  since  Percy  had  learned 
that  here  lived  "  Gail  Hamilton,"  the  vigor  and  candor  of  whose 
writings  he  had  heard  his  father  praise.  The  car  left  us  on  a 
country  road  some  distance  from  the  village,  but  we  found  the 
walk  over  an  agreeable  one,  enlivened  by  extensive  views  of 
rich  and  varied  landscape.  We  passed  through  the  village 
center  along  the  old  Bay  Road  which  the  Puritans  cut  out,  and 
which  before  railroad  days  was  the  stage  highway.  Handsome 
trees  now  line  it,  and  pleasant  estates  face  its  either  side. 

The  "  Dodge  place  "  which  we  were  seeking  —  for  "  Gail 
Hamilton"  was  Mary  Abigail  Dodge  (born  1830  died  1896) 
in  private  life  —  lay  just  outside  the  village,  the  house  occupy- 
ing a  slight  elevation  overlooking  fair,  wide-spreading  country. 
It  is  of  simple  design,  with  a  two-story  entrance  porch,  and  a 
side  porch  or  veranda  overhung  with  vines.  Within  Percy  was 
shown  the  room  in  which  "  Gail  Hamilton  "  wrote  many  of 
those  trenchant  essays  on  social,  religious,  and  political  topics 
which  gave  her  a  unique  place  among  the  woman  writers  of  her 
time ;  while  her  literary  life  was  outlined  to  him  by  one  who 
knew  her  best. 

Thus  he  learned  that  she  was  born  in  this  country  town,  of 
a  family  well  rooted  in  New  England  ancestry.     As  a  girl  she 


182 


LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 


was  of  high  spirit  and  high  aims,  a  forerunner  of  the  ath- 
letic girl  of  to-day.  At  twenty-one  she  was  teaching  physical 
science  in  a  high  school  at  Hartford,  Connecticut.  Soon  after 
she  became  a  governess  at  Washington,  in  the  family  of  the 

intrepid  Dr.  Gamaliel  Bai- 
ley, then  editing  the  Na- 
tional Era.  While  in  Dr. 
Bailey's  household  she 
became  thoroughly  im- 
bued with  its  anti-slavery 
atmosphere ;  and  then  be- 
gan her  earliest  writing 
for  the  press,  much  of 
which  appeared  in  the 
Era.  When  she  returned 
to  Hamilton  she  settled 
down  to  systematic  liter- 
ary work,  and  soon  her 
pen-name  grew  familiar 
to  the  weekly  newspaper 
and  magazine  public.  This  pen-name  quite  suited  her  whirl- 
wind style  of  writing.  She  was  among  the  earliest  to  write  in 
popular  vein  for  woman's  rights  and  against  woman's  wrongs 
in  domestic  and  general  life.  She  produced  rapidly,  and  for  a 
succession  of  years  published  one  volume  of  collected  papers 
annually,  sometimes  two.  First  appeared,  in  1862,  "  Country 
Living  and  Country  Thinking ;  "  the  next  year,  "  Gala  Days  ; " 
the  next,  "  A  New  Atmosphere."  This  book,  composed  of  high- 
keyed  essays  on  the  upbringing  of  girls  and  the  marriage  rela- 
tion, most  stirred  her  critics,  while  it  inspired  Wliittier's  highly 
complimentary  "  Lines  on  a  Fly  Leaf  "  of  a  copy  of  it :  — 


"GAIL    HAMILTON." 

(From    "Gail    Hamilton's"    "Life    in    Letters." 
permission  of  the  publishers,    Lee  &  Shepard.) 


Yet,  spite  of  all  the  critics  tell, 
I  frankly  own  I  like  her  well. 


IN   THE  HEART  OF  ESSEX.  183 

It  may  be  that  she  wields  a  pen 

Too  sharply-nibbed  for  thin-skinned  men, 

That  her  keen  arrows  search  and  try 

The  armor  joints  of  dignity, 

And,  though  alone  for  error  meant, 

Sing  through  the  air  irreverent. 

I  blame  her  not,  the  young  athlete 

Who  plants  her  woman's  tiny  feet, 

And  dares  the  chances  of  debate 

Where  bearded  men  might  hesitate, 

Who  deeply  earnest,  seeing  well 

The  ludicrous  and  laughable, 

Mingling  in  eloquent  excess 

Her  anger  and  her  tenderness, 

And,  chiding  with  a  half-caress, 

Strives,  less  for  her  own  sex  than  ours, 

With  principalities  and  powers, 

And  points  us  upward  to  the  clear 

Sunned  heights  of  her  new  atmosphere.1' 


Meanwhile  she  was  attaining  a  name  as  a  juvenile  writer  ; 
and  when  in  1865  Our  Young  Folks'  magazine  was  started  in 
Boston,  she  was  made  one  of  its  editors,  in  association  with 
John  T.  Trowbridge  and  Lucy  Larcom.  During  this  editorial 
work,  however,  there  was  no  break  in  her  system  of  annual 
bookniaking.  In  her  later  years  her  writings  were  rather  more 
on  political  than  social  themes.  The  marriage  of  her  cousin 
to  James  G.  Blaine  brought  her  into  close  relations  with  that 
astute  politician,  and  her  sharp  and  pungent  pen  was  much 
employed  in  the  discussion  of  questions  with  which  he  was 
more  or  less  identified.  Her  last  work  was  on  the  life  of 
this  distinguished  relative.  After  1876  her  home  was  again 
principally  in  Washington;  but  she  died  in  this  Hamilton 
home,  whither  she  was  tenderly  brought  from  Washington 
when  attacked  by  her  last  illness.  She  enjoyed  warm  and 
true  friendships  with  many  of  her  contemporaries,  none  truer 
or  more  lasting  than  that  with  Whittier. 


18 1  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

Leaving  the  Dodge  place  with  pleasant  memories,  we  con- 
tinued along  the  old  elm-lined  road  for  a  comparatively  short 
distance,  as  country  distances  go,  to  the  adjoining  town  of 
Wenham,  where  we  were  to  take  a  trolley-car  on  another  line 
onward  to  Beverly.  Before  boarding  the  car  we  glanced  at 
"  Fairflelds,"  the  Porter  Farm,  with  spreading  mansion  and 
acres  of  out-lands,  the  home  for  nearly  two  centuries  of  the 
Porter  family,  with  which  was  allied  that  eminent  astronomer 
and  cultured  gentleman,  the  late  Benjamin  Apthorp  Gould, 
and  of  which  also  is  the  poet  and  essayist,  Elizabeth  Porter 
Gould. 

The  car  ride  was  through  picturesque  parts.  We  traveled 
alongside  of  Wenham  Lake,  the  scene  of  Whittier's  sweet 
ballad  of  "The  Witch  of  WTenham": 

"  O  fair  the  face  of  Wenham  Lake 
Upon  the  young  girl's  shone." 

By  the  lakeside  near  the  highway  we  passed  the  point  where 
formerly  stood  the  "small  conical  hill"  where  Hugh  Peters 
preached  to  the  colonists  before  there  was  a  meetinghouse  in 
the  region.  So  it  was  called  "  Peter's  Pulpit  "  till  its  leveling 
in  our  day.  We  spun  through  North  Beverly,  where  some  of 
our  younger  poets  and  story  writers  have  found  inspiration  ; 
then  we  were  fairly  in  old  Beverly,  and  soon  at  the  end  of 
this  ride. 


XII. 

MASSACHUSETTS    BAY   SIDE. 

Old  Beverly  landmarks.  —  Birthplace  of  Lucy  Larcoin.  —  Her  early  lit- 
erary efforts  when  a  cotton  mill-hand.  —  Her  later  career.  —  "  Hannah 
Binding  Shoes."  —  Songs  of  the  sea.  —  Birthplace  of  Wilson  Flagg. 
—  His  contributions  to  the  literature  of  nature.  —  Birthplace  of 
George  E.  Woodberry.  —  His  "North  Shore  Watch,'1  and  "My 
Country."  — Beverly  Farms.  — Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  at  "  Beverly - 
by-the-Depot."  —  Manchester-by-the-Sea,  Summer  home  of  Dana, 
Bartol,  and  Fields. 

WE  alighted  from  our  car  on  Beverly's  main  street  at  the 
corner  of  Wallace  Street.  For  on  this  corner  is  the  little 
building  in  which  the  father  of  Lucy  Larcoin  (born  1824  — 
died  in  Boston,  1893),  a  retired  ship-captain,  kept  his  West- 
India  goods  shop  ;  and  back  on  the  cross  street,  then  a  rural 
lane  leading  through  open  fields  to  the  Bass-River  side,  is  the 
house  in  which  the  poet  was  born. 

It  is  a  humble  landmark,  this  plain  house  amid  plain  sur- 
roundings. It  has  no  association  with  Miss  Larcom's  literary 
work,  for  only  her  childhood  was  passed  here.  To  be  sure, 
she  composed  verses  when  in  pinafores,  or  "  tires,"  and  "  stuffed 
them  into  the  cracks  of  the  floor  of  the  attic"  here,  as  her  biog- 
rapher notes.  But  these  were  childish  things  with  no  spark  of 
genius  in  them.  Still,  as  Lucy  Larcom's  birthplace  the  modest 
dwelling  had  sufficient  fascination  to  keep  Percy  gazing  up  at 
it  till  he  had  gathered  about  him  on  the  sidewalk  quite  a 
group  of  curious  children. 

"  You  see,"  he  said,  "  I've  read  something  about  the  family 
life  here  —  it  must  have  been  this  house  —  in  l  A  New-England 
Girlhood,'  one  of  the  books  my  sister  owns.  I  wonder  if  the 
big  fireplace  in  which  the  children  sat,  so  big  that  sometimes 

185 


186  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

the  snowflakes  came  floating  down  its  long  throat,  is  still  open. 
And  the  garden,  —  there's  some  suggestion  of  a  garden  yet,  I 
see  ;  but  it's  pretty  lonesome-looking,  isn't  it  ?  " 

We  were  cordially  admitted  to  the  house  upon  stating  our 
mission,  and  Percy  was  permitted  to  roam  over  it.  He  recog- 
nized, however,  very  few  of  the  features  of  Miss  Larcom's 
sketch,  and  the  old  fireplace  was  no  more  to  be  seen.  But 
this  change  was  inevitable  and  natural,  I  reminded  him,  since 


BIRTHPLACE     OF     LUCY     LARCOM. 

it  was  back  in  the  twenties  that  the  Larcoms  came  here  to  live, 
a  short  time  before  Lucy  was  born  in  the  little  chamber  on  the 
second  floor ;  and  it  was  but  a  few  years  afterward,  when  Lucy 
was  a  slip  of  a  girl,  and  the  kind  old  father  had  died,  that  the 
mother  moved  the  household  of  children  away  to  Lowell. 
.  "  It  was  there,"  I  continued,  "  when  she  was  a  cotton  <  mill- 
hand,'  that  her  career  as  a  writer  began,  —  with  contributions 
to  the  Lowell  Offering,  the  factory  girls'  journal.  Her  ballad 
of  '  Hannah  Binding  Shoes/  which  first  brought  her  wide  rec- 
ognition, and  has  sung  its  way  through  the  English-speaking 
world,  was  written  when  she  was  a  teacher.  Other  of  her  ex- 
cellent work » was  done  in  the  West  when  she  was  teaching 
with  the  pioneers  on  the  prairies  of  Illinois.  But  her  native 


MASSACHUSETTS  BAY  SIDE. 


187 


place  by  the  sea,  where  her  ancestors  had  lived  for  generations, 
was  always  home  to  her,  and  here  she  found  inspiration  for 
her  best  poems.  <  Hannah  Binding  Shoes '  was  a  study  of  life 
here  in  Beverly.  So  was  <  Skip- 
per Ben/  And  all  her  songs  of 
the  sea,  in  which  she  most  ex- 
celled, —  <  On  the  Beach,'  <  A 
Sea  Glimpse/  'The  Light 
Houses/  <  Peggy  Blight's  Voy- 
age, 'Wild  Eoses  of  Cape  Ann/ 
<  My  Mariner/  <  On  the  Misery/ 
and  the  rest,  were  of  its  neigh- 
borhood. So,  too,  was  that 
choicest  of  her  few  narrative 
poems,  '  Mistress  Hale  of  Bev- 
erly/ which  relates  the  historic 


LUCY     LARCOM. 


incident   of   the   dispelling  of 

the  witchcraft  delusion  through 

the  '  crying  out '  against  the  Beverly  minister's  wife,  renowned 

for  her  sweet  disposition,  genuine  piety,  and  Christian  virtues, 

and  the  awakening  of  her  husband  to  the  awful  error  of  the 

persecution  in  which  he  had  been  among  the  most  active." 

Returning  to  the  main  street  we  shortly  came  to  the  fine  old 
Burley  mansion  now  occupied  by  the  Beverly  Historical  So- 
ciety, where  Percy  saw,  with  other  treasures,  the  manuscript 
of  "  Hannah  Binding  Shoes  "  ;  and  he  was  given  the  rare  privi- 
lege of  copying  it. 

While  he  was  thus  engaged  the  singular  controversy  over 
the  first  publication  of  this  poem  was  recalled.  According  to 
Miss  Larcom  herself,  she  sent  it  originally  to  the  Knickerbocker 
Magazine,  with  her  name  and  a  request  for  the  usual  payment 
if  the  poem  was  accepted.  Then,  after  a  lapse  of  some  months, 
having  heard  nothing  from  it,  and  assuming  that  it  had  been 
rejected,  she  offered  it  to  The  Crayon,  another  New  York 
magazine,  where  it  duly  appeared  with  her  signature.  But 


188  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

meanwhile  it  had  been  tardily  published  in  the  Knickerbocker 
with  a  nom  de  plume ;  and  when  it  came  out  in  The  Crayon, 
the  editor  of  the  Knickerbocker  publicly  charged  Lucy  Larcom 
with  stealing  it,  branding  her  as  a  "  literary  thief  ess."  A  brisk 
correspondence  ensued  j  but  Miss  Larcorn  had  no  difficulty  in 
proving  her  authorship,  or  in  justifying  her  course.  To  this 


'"T 


FACSIMILE     OF    "  HANNAH     BINDING     SHOES." 

circumstance  she  modestly  attributed  the  wide  notice  the  poem 
speedily  received,  but  the  human  touch  and  the  pathos  of  it 
were  most  potent  in  bringing  it  close  to  the  heart  of  the  people. 
It  was  set  to  music,  and  was  sung  by  the  concert  singers  of  the 
day,  of  whom  jione  rendered  it  with  truer  and  tenderer  feeling 
than  Clara  Louise  Kellogg. 


MASSACHUSETTS  BAY  SIDE.  189 

In  speaking  of  Lucy  Larcoin's  earliest  writings  when  a 
Lowell  mill-hand,  Percy  expressed  surprise  at  her  literary 
development  under  such  adverse  circumstances. 

"  That  was  fairly  explained,  if  my  memory  serves  me,"  I 
observed,  "in  <A  New  England  Girlhood/  Lowell  at  the 
beginning  was  a  far  different  mill-town  from  now,  or  from 
what  it  was  during  the  last  generation.  It  drew  its  operatives 
at  first  from  the  farms  and  country  villages,  and  the  sea-coast 
towns  of  eastern  New  England.  They  came  for  the  most  part 
from  well  ordered  families  and  respectable  homes ;  and  numer- 
ous associations  were  established  for  their  mental  and  social 
advantage.  There  were  '  social  circles '  organized  by  the 
various  churches,  the  '  lyceum  '  with  the  best  of  lecture  courses ; 
literary  societies,  and  night  schools. 

"  When  an  agent  came  from  Illinois  for  school  teachers,  he 
was  told  by  one  of  the  mill  superintendents  that  in  his  mill 
alone  there  could  be  found  five  hundred  girls  thoroughly  quali- 
fied for  school-teaching.  The  girls  had  reading  clubs,  and 
many  of  them  read  and  studied  systematically  in  their  hours  of 
leisure.  While  the  Larcoin  family  were  at  Lowell,  the  mother 
kept  one  of  the  operatives'  boarding-houses,  and  the  home-life 
there  was  as  wholesome  and  refined  as  in  the  smaller  Beverly 
home.  When  Dickens  first  visited  the  country,  in  1842,  he 
wrote  of  these  operatives,  in  his  ( American  Notes : '  '  I  sol- 
emnly declare  that  from  all  the  crowd  I  saw  in  the  different 
factories,  I  cannot  recall  one  face  that  gave  me  a  painful  im- 
pression ;  not  one  young  girl  whom,  assuming  it  to  'be  a  matter 
of  necessity  that  she  should  gain  her  daily  bread  by  the  labor 
of  her  hands,  I  would  have  removed  if  I  had  the  power/ 
Literary  journals  were  early  started  among  the  mill-hands,  and 
the  first  of  them  was  a  home  production  of  Lucy's  elder  sister 
Emetine. 

"This  sister  Emeline,"  I  continued,  speaking  of  Miss  Lar- 
com's  training,  "  was  her  earliest  literary  guide.  She  directed 
her  reading  from  childhood.  She  interested  her  in  such  books 


190  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

as  <  Pilgrim's  Progress/  *  Paul  and  Virginia,'  Miss  Edgeworth's 
juvenile  stories,  'Elizabeth,  or  the  Exiles  of  Siberia;'  and,  as 
her  years  advanced,  in  Scott,  Spenser,  Southey,  Wordsworth, 
and  Coleridge.  Later  Lucy  enjoyed  the  influence  of  Whittier, 
with  whom  an  acquaintance,  begun  when  she  was  a  factory 
girl,  ripened  into  a  friendship  which  lasted  throughout  his  life. 
With  him  she  compiled  <  Child  Life,'  and  <  Songs  of  Three 
Centuries.'  She  was  also  an  early  and  life  long  intimate  friend 
of  the  poet's  sister,  Elizabeth  Whittier. 


HOME     OF     MISTRESS     HALE. 


"  Her  first  book  ?  That  was  f  Similitudes,'  made  up  in  part 
of  her  Lowell  Offering  essays.  Her  best  poetry  was  the  work 
of  her  mature  life.  Some  of  her  best  work  was  produced  while 
she  was  engaged  in  the  prosaic  occupation  of  teaching,  which 
covered  a  period  of  about  twenty  years  from  her  twentieth 
birthday.  Beginning  with  district-school  teaching,  in  a  prairie 
log  house,  she  developed  into  an  instructor  in  the  higher 
branches.  For  this  she  qualified  in  the  West  by  a  course  in 
the  Monticello  Female  Seminary,  at  Alton,  Illinois.  For  a 
while  she  kepi?  an  excellent  school  of  her  own  here  in  Beverly. 
Then  she  taught  eight  years  in  the  Wheaton  Female  Seminary 


MASSACHUSETTS  BAY  SIDE.  191 

at  Norton,  near  Boston ;  and  it  was  while  there  that  she  wrote 
« Hannah  Binding  Shoes/  Later  she  lectured  on  literature  in 
various  schools.  When  Our  Young  Folks'  was  started,  she  had 
become  a  favorite  writer  with  children,  and  her  assistant 
editorship  of  that  magazine  continued  through  its  entire 
career.  The  religious  poems  which  occupy  so  large  a  space  in 
her  collected  works  were  composed  mostly  during  her  later 
years.  She  died  in  Boston,  but  her  grave  was  made  here  in 
the  old  burying-ground  within  sound  of  her  beloved  sea." 


BEVERLY    HOME   OF    WILSON    FLAGG. 

From  the  historical  rooms  we  strolled  farther  down  Cabot 
Street  where,  on  the  opposite  side,  we  were  pointed  to  the 
birthplace  of  Wilson  Flagg  (born  1805  — died  1884),  the 
naturalist,  forerunner  of  Thoreau  and  Burroughs  as  a  con- 
tributor to  our  literature  on  natural  scenery  and  objects.  His 
name  was  unfamiliar  to  Percy,  which  was  not  surprising,  for 
his  works  were  slighter  than  those  of  his  contemporaries,  and 
less  widely  distributed.  Yet  they  have  been  aptly  described 
as  "standard  New  England  classics  for  every  household." 
"  They  treat/'  I  further  explained,  "  in  agreeable  diction  and 


192 


LI  TERA  R  Y  PIL  GRIM  A  GES. 


with  intimate  knowledge,  of  various  scenes  and  aspects  of 
nature ;  of  our  native  trees  and  shrubs,  the  forests  and  their  re- 
lation to  climate  and  salubrity ;  of  our  birds  as  songsters,  and 
their  service  to  agriculture. 

"Flagg  was  born  twelve  years  before  Thoreau,  and  the 
publication  of  his  essays  began  in  periodicals  ten  years  or  so 
before  Thoreau's  first  book  appeared.  In  his  young  manhood 
he  made  a  pedestrian  tour  alone,  from  Tennessee  to  Kentucky, 
and  upon  his  return  home  he  engaged  in  teaching  and  lecturing 
on  natural  science.  Though  bred  for  a  physician,  he  never 

practiced,  but  devoted  him- 
self instead  to  journalistic 
and  literary  pursuits,  with 
his  favorite  study  of  nature 
uppermost.  After  1840  he 
wrote  exclusively  on  rural 
subjects  and  natural  science, 
publishing  first  in  the  agri- 
cultural press  and  other  peri- 
odicals. During  part  of 
Tyler's  and  Folk's  adminis- 
trations he  enjoyed  a  posi- 
tion in  the  Boston  Custom 
House,  possibly  in  reward 
for  his  previous  service  as 
a  political  writer  in  the  par- 
tisan press.  His  first  book, 
'  Studies  in  the  Field  and 
Forest/  was  published  in 
1857.  The  other  books, 
three  of  them  only,  appeared 
at  long  intervals ;  and  in  1881  these,  with  added  matter,  were 
reproduced  in  three  volumes  with  new  titles,  *  Halcyon  Days/ 
<  A  Year  Witli  the  Trees,'  and  <  A  Year  With  the  Birds.'  This 
was  not  a  large  output,  but  it  was  choice.  Flagg  spent  the 


WILSON     FLAGG. 


MASSACHUSETTS   BAY  £/DE.  193 


latter  half  of  his  life  in  Cambridge,  where  his  home  was 
within  easy  reach  of  rural  parts  ;  and  there  he  died  full  of 
years." 

Retracing  our  steps  we  walked  to  the  Common,  and  in  its 
neighborhood  came  to  the  birthplace  of  Professor  George  E. 
Woodberry  (born  1855  —  ),  whose  "  North  Shore  Watch,"  I  but 
echoed  the  declaration  of  authoritive  judges  in  saying,  has 
given  him  rank  with  our  foremost  modern  poets,  as  his 
"Makers  of  Literature"  and  «  Heart  of  Man"  have  placed 
him  first  among  the  purely  literary  American  essayists  and 
critics  of  to-day.  We  saw  in  this  place  a  genuine  ancestral 
home;  for  the  Woodberry  s  are  of  the  oldest  of  Beverly 
families,  tracing  back  to  the  "  first  comers,"  —  a  house,  back 
from  the  street,  long  and  low,  of  dignified  aspect,  shaded  by 
venerable  trees,  set  in  restful  old-fashioned  grounds.  The 
room  at  the  left  of  the  entrance  with  a  westward  outlook, 
Percy  was  told,  was  the  study,  where  Professor  Woodberry  has 
wrought  much  of  his  fine  work.  Here  he  retires  occasionally 
from  the  duties  of  his  chair  of  English  literature  in  Columbia 
University,  New  York  City,  or  in  the  vacation  seasons,  when 
some  especial  literary  task  is  in  hand. 

Then,  as  we  strolled  about  the  vicinity  that  we  might  not 
attract  attention,  but  keeping  the  house  in  view,  I  gave  as 
follows  the  details  of  the  poet-essayist's  development,  which 
Percy  most  desired  to  have. 

"  Woodberry  is  the  son  of  a  Beverly  shipmaster.  He  was 
a  Phillips  (Exeter)  Academy  boy,  and  went  to  Harvard  when 
he  was  seventeen.  But  ill  health  compelled  him  to  withdraw 
from  his  class,  and  he  was  unable  to  return  to  Cambridge  till 
almost  three  years  later.  He  was  graduated  in  1877,  having 
taken  the  highest  final  honors  in  philosophy  and  been  awarded 
an  oration  at  Commencement.  He  was  not  permitted,  how- 
ever, to  deliver  his  thesis  ;  for  the  Faculty  committee  in 
charge  disapproved  its  substance,  or  decided  that  certain 
passages  might  shock  the  religious  sensibilities  of  the  audience. 


194 


LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 


It  was  a  treatment  of  the  <  Kelation  of  Pallas  Athene  to 
Athens.'  Some  time  afterward,  at  the  request  of  college 
friends,  it  was  privately  published  in  a  limited  edition. 
While  in  college  Woodberry  was  one  of  the  editors  of  the 
Harvard  Advocate,  —  the  college  journal,  —  and  in  its  columns 
appeared  some  of  his  earlier  verses.  Before  his  graduation, 
these  writings  were  issued  in  a  thin  volume  as  '  Verses  from 

the  Harvard  Advocate.' 
Upon  its  publication 
Lowell  wrote  to  How- 
ells,  '  If  you  notice  the 
poetry  from  the  Har- 
vard Advocate,  pat  him 
on  the  back.  His  name 
is  Woodberry,  and  his 
1  Violet  Crown '  is  a  far 
cry  beyond  anything 
else  in  the  volume/ 

"  Almost  immedi- 
ately after  leaving  col- 
lege he  got  a  position 
in  the  West,  as  acting 
profesors  of  English 
and  history  in  the  Uni- 
versity of  Nebraska. 
He  held  it,  however, 
only  a  year,  and  return- 
PROFESSOR  G.  E.  WOODBERRY.  illg  East  became  assis- 

tant editor  of  The  Nation  in  New  York.  After  another  year 
of  this  work,  —  an  excellent  training,  —  he  returned  to  Massa- 
chusetts, and  settling  down  in  Cambridge  under  the  shadow  of 
Harvard,  devoted  himself  to  the  congenial  labors  of  a  general 
literary  worker.  In  1880  he  was  called  back  to  the  Nebraska 
University,  and  for  two  years  occupied  the  English  professor- 
ship there.  Then  there  came  a  clash  in  the  government  of  the 


MASSACHUSETTS   BAY  SIDE.  195 

college,  the  result  of  which  was  his  retirement  with  others  of 
the  faculty  of  his  side  of  the  controversy. 

"  Woodberry  then  returned  to  Beverly,  and  again  en- 
gaged in  general  literary  work.  During  this  period  his  <  North 
Shore  Watch :  a  Threnody '  was  produced ;  and  his  *  Life  of 
Edgar  Allan  Foe,'  which,  as  Lindsay  Swift  in  his  apprecia- 
tive study  of  Woodberry  (in  the  Book  Buyer)  has  justly  said, 
1  became  almost  at  once  the  recognized  authority  on  Poe,  and 
did  a  true  service  in  American  literature  in  dispelling  some 
deceptive  mists  of  popular  tradition.'  In  1885  he  went  to 
Italy  with  high  anticipations,  but,  to  quote  again  from  Mr. 
Swift,  'he  soon  returned  apparently  disheartened  with  his 
journey,  in  which  he  saw  much  in  foreign  conditions  to  distress 
and  disturb  him.  Good  results  ensued  nevertheless.  He 
started  out  a  citizen  of  the  world :  he  came  back  an  American 
of  no  uncertain  sort.'  And  this  American  loyalty  has  been  a 
dominant  note  in  him  since.  It  found  early  expression  after 
he  retouched  his  native  soil  in  his  noble  poem  « My  Country.' 
Listen  to  this  passage  :  — 


'Large-limbed  they  were,  the  pioneers, 
Cast  in  the  iron  mould  that  fate  reveres; 
They  could  not  help  but  frame  the  fabric  well, 
Who  squared  the  stones  for  heaven's  eye  to  tell ; 
Who  knew  from  eld  and  taught  posterity, 

That  the  true  workman's  only  he 

Who  builds  of  God's  necessity. 
Nor  yet  hath  failed  the  seed  of  righteousness ; 
Still  doth  the  work  the  awe  divine  confess, 
Conscience  within,  duty  without,  express. 
Well  may  thy  sons  rejoice  thee,  O  proud  Land  ; 
No  weakling  race  of  mighty  loins  is  thine, 
No  spendthrifts  of  the  fathers  ;  lo,  the  Arch, 
The  loyai  keystone  glorying  o'er  the  march 
Of  millioned  peoples  freed  !  on  every  hand 
Grows  the  vast  work,  and  boundless  the  design. 
So  in  thy  children  shall  thy  empire  stand, 


196  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

As  in  her  Caesars  fell  Rome's  majesty  — 

O  Desolation,  be  it  far  from  thee  ! 

Forgetting  sires  and  sons  to  whom  were  given 

The  seals  of  glory  and  the  keys  of  fate 

From  Him,  whom  well  they  knew  the  Rock  of  State, 

Thy  center,  and  on  thy  doorposts  blazed  His  name 

Whose  plaudit  is  the  substance  of  all  fame, 

The  sweetness  of  all  hope  —  forbid  it  Heaven  ! ' 

«  And  this  - 

'  O  Land  beloved  ! 
My  Country,  dear,  my  own  ! 
May  the  young  heart  that  moved 

For  the  weak  words  atone ; 

The  mighty  lyre  not  mine,  nor  the  full  breath  of  song! 
To  happier  sons  shall  these  belong. 
Yet  doth  the  first  and  lonely  voice 
Of  the  dark  dawn  the  heart  rejoice, 
While  still  the  loud  choir  sleeps  upon  the  bough  ; 
And  never  greater  love  salutes  thy  brow 

Thau  his,  who  seeks  thee  now. 
Alien  the  sea  and  salt  the  foam 
Where'er  it  bears  him  from  his  home  ; 

And  when  he  leaps  to  land, 
A  lover  treads  the  strand  ; 
Precious  is  every  stone  ; 
No  little  inch  of  all  the  broad  domain 
But  he  would  stoop  to  kiss,  and  end  his  pain, 
Feeling  thy  lips  make  merry  with  his  own  ; 
But  oh,  his  trembling  reed  too  frail 

To  bear  thee  Time's  All-Hail ! 
Faint  is  my  heart,  and  ebbing  with  the  passion  of  thy  praise  ! 

The  poets  come  who  cannot  fail  ; 
Happy  are  they  who  sing  thy  perfect  days  ! 

"  Upon  the  text  of  this  poem  Professor  John  K.  Paine  com- 
posed a  cantata,  (  A  Song  of  Praise/  which  was  performed  at 
the  Music  Festival  in  Cincinnati  in  1888. 

"  Woodberry  made  another  journey  to  Italy  in  the  winter 
of  18.88-'89,  when  he  observed  foreign  conditions  in  a  happier 


MASSACHUSETTS   BAY  SIDE.  197 

mood,  to  use  Mr.  Swift's  expression,  but  his  Americanism 
was,  if  anything,  intensified.  In  the  decade  succeeding  ap- 
peared, among  other  volumes,  his  'North  Shore  Watch  and 
Other  Poems '  in  new  book  form ;  his  '  Studies  in  Letters  and 
Life/  the  basis  of  his  later  '  Makers  of  Literature '  ;  his  Shel- 
ley's Works,  with  memoir  and  notes ;  Foe's  works,  with  me- 


; 


FACSIMILE    OF    WOODBERRY'S   MANUSCRIPT   AND   AUTOGRAPH. 

moir  and  notes,  in  collaboration  with  Edmund  C.  Stedman ; 
'  National  Studies  in  American  Letters  ' ;  the  '  Heart  of  Man  ' ; 
and  ( Wild  Eden,'  his  third  volume  of  collected  poems.  Mean- 
while, or  previously,  he  was  a  frequent  writer  of  critical  arti- 
cles for  the  Atlantic,  and  a  regular  book  reviewer  for  The 
Nation  and  for  the  Boston  Post  when  that  journal  was  under 


198  LITEEAEY  PILGRIMAGES. 

Edwin  M.  Bacon's  editorship.     He  became  professor  of  Eng- 
lish literature  in  Columbia  University  in  1891. 

"  Of  Woodberry's  personality  Mr.  Swift  has  given  the 
truest  estimate.  '  His  simplicity  of  manner,  his  evenness  and 
absence  of  exaggeration  do  not  at  first  bespeak  the  ability  and 
cleverness  behind  it  all.  His  face  is  of  the  essentially  higher 
Yankee  type,  —  such  as  Emerson's  was,  —  with  eyes  of  great 
kindliness  and  good  fellowship,  but  expressive,  too,  of  moods. 
In  his  writings,  too,  he  shows  some  of  that  sternness  and  re- 
moteness from  meaner  interests,  and  characteristics  of  what  is 
best  in  New  England  life.  In  the  constitution  of  his  mind,  in 
the  great  patience  of  his  accurate  methods,  there  is  a  close 
resemblance  in  him  to  the  older  literary  craft  of  New  Eng- 
land. ...  In  purely  critical  matters  he  is  unsparing  and  in- 
flexible, manifestly  holding  that  his  profession  must  be  beyond 
the  possibility  of  contamination.'  " 

We  now  engaged  a  smart  trap  for  a  late  afternoon  and 
early  evening  drive  to  sumptuous  Beverly  Farms  and  back, 
and  across  Old  Beverly  Bridge  to  Salem. 

Our  particular  object  in  visiting  the  Farms  was  to  see  the 
favorite  summer  place  of  Oliver  ,Wendell  Holmes  (born  in  Cam- 
bridge 1809— died  in  Boston,  1894),  at  «  Beverly-by-the-Depot," 
as  the  genial  Autocrat  was  wont  facetiously  to  date  his  letters, 
imitating  the  fashion  of  the  summer  colonists  of  his  neighbor 
town  of  Manchester  who  dubbed  that  "  Manchester-by-the-Sea ;  " 
but  the  place  itself  with  its  natural  beauties  and  its  opulent 
summer  seats  enhanced  the  attractiveness  of  the  trip.  Had 
the  time  allowed  we  should  have  liked  to  extend  the  ride  into 
Manchester  where  the  poet,  Richard  Henry  Dana,  the  elder  (born 
in  Cambridge  1787  —  died  in  Boston,  1879),  had  his  gray  old 
summer  mansion  on  the  edge  of  a  lofty  bluff  overlooking  a  singing 
beach,  years  before  the  fashionables  absorbed  the  place ;  where 
the  late  Dr.  Cyrus  A.  Bartol  (born  in  Freeport,  Maine,  1813  — 
died  in  Boston,  1901),  the  Boston  poet  of  the  pulpit,  occupied 
for  a  generation  and  more  "Glass  Head"  with  his  summer  house 


MASSACHUSETTS  BAY  SIDE.  199 

and  its  detached  "  study  tower ;  "  and  where  James  T.  Fields 
so  long  summered,  with  many  a  lettered  guest,  in  his  low 
spreading,  verandaed  cottage,  crowning  "  Thunderbolt  Hill." 

The  Holmes  cottage  we  found  remaining  as  in  the  Doctor's 
time,  a  modest  two-story  house  of  wood,  with  broad  verandas 
overhung  with  vines,  commanding  the  ocean  view.  It  was  in 
the  cosy  parlor  that  the  Autocrat  sat  and  received  his  friends 
during  those  last  serene  summer  and  autumn  days  of  his  long 
life.  Here  he  celebrated  the  birthdays  of  his  old  age,  when 
many  came  as  to  a  shrine.  In  the  little  sanctum  off  the  parlor 
much  of  his  later  work  was  done.  Hours  of  glowing  days  he 
passed  on  the  piazza  with  its  protecting  awnings,  in  his  big, 
enveloping  willow  chair.  "  This  house  is  not  one  of  tone,"  he 
once  said,  "it  is  very  modest  indeed,  I  am  fully  aware ;  but  it 
suits  me  well." 

This  night  we  spent  at  the  Farms  as  guests  of  a  summer 
resident  whose  friendship  I  enjoyed.  Bright  and  early  the 
next  morning  we  bade  our  host  adieu,  and  drove  from  his  sea- 
side castle  Salem-ward. 


XIII. 

HAWTHORNE'S   SALEM. 

Beverly  Bridge  and  "  The  Toll-Gatherer's  Day."  —Birthplaces  of  Charles 
T.  Brooks  and  William  W.  Story.  —  Hawthorne's  house  on  Mall 
Street.  —  His  study  "  high  from  all  noise."  — Story  of  " The  Scarlet 
Letter." — The  romancer's  previous  work  and  its  slow  recogni- 
tion. —  The  Union  Street  and  Herbert  Street  houses.  —  The  Peabody 
house  and  "Dr.  Grimshawe's  Secret." — The  old  burying-ground 
as  pictured  by  Hawthorne. — Nathaniel  Mather,  "an  aged  man  at 
nineteen  years." — The  so-called  "  Seven  Gables  house."  —  Other 
Hawthorne  homes.  —  Historic  house  of  Abner  C.  Goodell. — Birth- 
place of  Prescott.  —Jones  Very.  —  Nahant. 

ON  the  Beverly, Bridge  —  or  the  Essex  Bridge,  its  official 
title  —  we  were  at  the  scene  of  Hawthorne's  "  The  Toll- 
Gatherer's  Day,"  of  his  «  Twice  Told  Tales."  But  Percy  had 
to  imagine  it  all :  the  earlier  and  plainer  structure ;  the  toll- 
house—  "the  small,  square  edifice"  standing  "between  shore 
and  shore  in  the  middle  of  the  long  bridge,"  —  with  its  hospi- 
table outside  wooden  bench  upon  which  the  weary  wayfarers 
reposed ;  the  toll-gatherer,  "  of  quiet  soul,  and  thoughtful, 
shrewd,  yet  simple  mind";  the  "travel  north  and  east  con- 
stantly throbbing  like  the  life-blood  through  a  great  artery." 
For  there  were  no  railroads  in  those  days,  no  trolley-cars,  no 
bicycles,  no  automobiles,  no  "  conveniences  "  of  modern  times, 
but  far  more  picturesqueness  on  the  public  road. 

Well  within  Salem  we  passed  on  Bridge  Street,  at  the  north 
corner  of  Arabella  Steeet,  the  birthplace  of  Charles  Timothy 
Brooks  (born  1813 — died  in  Newport,  K.  I.,  1883)  preacher, 
scholar,  poet,  author ;  "  half  Lamb,  and  half  Cowper,"  as  his 
townsman,  the  critic  Silsbee,  characterized  him.  "  He  was, 
boy  and  man,  remarkable,"  I  chatted.  "  He  himself  told  how, 

200 


HAWTHORNE'S   SALEM.  201 

when  he  was  four  years  old,  he  used  to  come  down  in  his 
nightgown  and  say  the  multiplication  table  and  read  the 
newspapers  to  the  family.  He  was  minister  at  Newport, 
Rhode  Island,  for  thirty-five  years  :  first  minister  of  the  first 
Unitarian  society  there.  He  was  an  anti-slavery  man,  and 
grandly  independent,  as  the  following  incident  shows.  At  the 
close  of  a  sermon  in  which  he  had  spoken  his  mind  on  the 
subject  of  slavery,  an  influential  parishioner  said  to  him,  '  I 
have  felt  for  some  time  that  you  must  go,  but  now  I  am  sure 


BIRTHPLACE     OF     WILLIAM     WETMORE     STORY. 

of  it.'  '  Sir,'  firmly  replied  the  quiet,  gentle  preacher,  '  I  have 
my  hat  in  my  hand.'  His  literary  productions  were  astonish- 
ing in  variety  and  compass.  Said  one  of  his  eulogists,  '  Lite- 
rary and  theological  essays,  reviews,  historical  monographs, 
odes  and  hymns  for  religious,  patriotic,  and  festive  occasions, 
drolleries,  children's  books,  translations  from  the  masterpieces 
of  foreign  literature  [especially  of  Richter]  both  in  prose  and 
rhyme,  occasional  poems  and  jeitx  d*  esprit,  flowed  from  his 
busy  pen  in  an  uninterrupted  stream.'" 

Turning    into    Winter    Street,    broad    and    elm-lined,    and 


202  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

thence  to  Washington  Square  by  the  Common,  around  which 
the  nabobs  of  Salem's  golden  age  of  commercial  supremacy 
built  their  •  stately  mansions,  we  passed,  near  the  corner,  the 
Judge  Joseph  Story  mansion,  where  was  born  his  son  William 
Wetmore  Story  (born  1819 — died  in  Vallombrosa,  Italy, 
1895),  the  author  and  sculptor.  "What  did  he  write?"  I 
replied  to  Percy's  questioning :  "  poems  and  essays  of  delicate 
texture.  He  wrote  '  Roba  di  Roma,'  on  modern  Rome  and  its 
life.  He  published  several  volumes  of  poems ;  he  produced  a 
novel  which  had  some  vogue, l  Fiametta,  A  Summer  Idyl ; '  but 
his  <  Conversations  in  a  Studio ; '  and  '  Excursions  in  Art  and 
Letters '  were  perhaps  his  choicest  papers.  He  lived  most  of 
his  life  in  Italy,  and  his  studio  there  was  a  center  of  art  and 
literature." 

In  Mall  Street,  opening  from  Washington  Square,  we  came 
to  the  first  of  a  succession  of  Hawthorne  landmarks,  —  the 
house,  No.  14,  in  which  "The  Scarlet  Letter"  was  written. 
Although  these  were  all  familiar  to  Percy,  from  our  historic 
pilgrimage  to  Salem,  he  approached  them  with  the  zeal  of  a 
first  visit ;  and  we  could  give  them  more  time  than  before. 

Since  the  Mall-Street  house  was  associated  with  Hawthorne's 
first  sustained  work  of  fiction,  and  was  the  best  of  his  Salem 
literary  workshops,  we  traced  his  life  here  in  somewhat  close 
detail. 

The  house  was  taken  in  the  autumn  of  Hawthorne's  second 
year  in  the  Salem  Custom  House.  His  mother  and  his  two 
sisters  came  to  live  with  him  here,  but  occupied  a  separate 
part.  His  quiet  study,  "  high  from  all  noise,"  was  the  front 
room  in  the  third  story.  He  greatly  appreciated  this  seclusion, 
for  before  he  had  attempted  to  write  in  the  family  sitting- 
room ;  and  there  were  now  two  children,  —  Una  and  Julian. 
Here  during  his  leisure  hours  he  composed  a  few  of  his  after- 
ward famous  stories,  "  The  Snow  Image  "  among  them.  Some- 
time before  he  began  "  The  Scarlet  Letter  "  he  had«a  "  romance 
growling  in  his  mind,"  but  the  distractions  of  his  Custom-house 


HAWTHORNE'S   SALEM. 


203 


duties,  slight  though  they  were,  interfered  with  its  execution. 
The  opportunity  came  by  what  at  the  time  seemed  to  be  ex- 
treme hardship,  —  the  loss  of  his  surveyorship  through  political 
maneuvers.  On  the  day  of  the  announcement  of  his  discharge 
—  in  July,  1849, —  he  came  home  earlier  than  usual,  and  to  his 
wife's  expression  of  surprise  and  pleasure  at  this  unexpected 
appearance,  he  remarked  with  grim  humor  that  he  had  left  his 
head  behind  him.  "  Oh,  then,"  she  exclaimed  with  a  glad 


HAWTHORNE'S     MALL     STREET     HOUSE. 

smile,  "  you  can  write  your  book ! "  When  with  returning 
smile  he  retorted  that  it  would  be  agreeable  to  know  where 
their  bread  and  rice  were  coming  from  while  the  book  was 
being  written,  this  genuine  help-meet  turned  to  her  desk  and, 
pulling  out  a  drawer,  revealed  a  little  heap  of  gold !  It  was 
her  savings  from  the  sums  he  had  from  time  to  time  given  her 
from  his  salary,  for  household  expenses.  So  he  began  "  The 
Scarlet  Letter"  that  very  afternoon. 

The  story  was  produced  amid  various  perplexities  and  afflic- 


204  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

tions.  Before  it  had  got  far  under  way  his  mother  was  taken 
dangerously  ill,  and  in  a  few  weeks  died.  Later  came  the 
inevitable  domestic  embarrassments  from  narrowing  means. 
Then  in  the  autumn  illness  fell  upon  the  entire  family.  But 
the  work  sped  steadily  on,  and  within  six  months  of  its  begin- 
ning the  manuscript  was  in  the  printers'  hands.  When  he 
read  the  last  scene  to  his  wife  just  after  writing  it,  —  "  tried 
to  read  it  rather,"  as  he  afterward  wrote  in  his  English  Note 
Book,  apropos  of  Thackeray's  coolness  in  respect  to  his  own 
pathos,  —  "  my  voice  swelled  and  heaved,  as  if  I  were  tossed 
up  and  down  on  an  ocean  as  it  subsides  after  a  storm."  The 
book  appeared  in  the  spring  of  1850,  and  the  world  at  last 
recognized  in  its  author  the  American  master  romancer. 

"Hawthorne  was  now  forty-six,"  I  remarked  at  the  finish 
of  this  summary,  "  and  he  had  toiled  for  a  quarter  century, 
with  much  exquisite  workmanship,  before  he  was  thus  fully 
discovered  by  that  elusive  class  denominated  the  general 
reading  public.  It  was  twenty-two  years  since  '  Fanshawe,' 
his  first  book,  was  published  anonymously,  at  his  own  expense 
and  with  a  loss.  He  had  produced  and  published  numerous 
little  masterpieces,  —  stories  and  sketches, —  in  magazines, 
'  Annuals,'  and  '  Souvenirs.'  His  works  in  book-form  had  in- 
cluded the  '  Twice  Told  Tales,'  a  second  series  of  the  Tales 
eight  years  later,  and  the  '  Mosses  From  an  Old  Manse,'  which 
had  spread  his  reputation  in  cultivated  fields.  Long  before, 
his  genius  had  been  warmly  acknowledged  by  his  literary  con- 
temporaries. ,But  till  now  his  creations  had  failed  to  reach 
the  popularity  which  others  of  far  less  worth  had  attained." 

"A  singular  lack  of  appreciation,"  Percy  interjected. 
"  How  is  it  accounted  for  ?  " 

"This  slow  recognition  has  been  the  subject  of  much  specu- 
lation by  latter-day  critics  ;  and  Salem  has  come  in  for  a  share 
of  criticism,  for  its  '  cold  treatment  of  its  illustrious  son/ 
.The  late  Dr.  George  B.  Loring,  himself  a  cultured  son  of  Salem, 
and  a  relative  by  marriage  of  Hawthorne's,  offered  an  intelli- 


HAWTHORNE'S   SALEM.  205 

gent  explanation  of  the  matter,  in  a  letter  which  is  quoted  in 
Conway's  «  Life/  <  Salem/  he  said,  <  did  not  "  treat  its  illus- 
trious son  "  at  all,  because  he  gave  it  no  opportunity.  He  was 
a  recluse  there  always.  In  early  life  he  was  part  of  the  time 
in  college,  and  the  rest  of  the  time  an  unknown,  and  appar- 
ently idle  young  man.  He  wrote  stories  and  published  them 
in  the  magazines,  but  nobody  knew  who  wrote  them ;  and 
Elizabeth  Peabody  [his  sister-in-law]  told  me  that  for  a  long 
time  it  was  supposed  they  were  written  by  a  woman  —  and 
that  not  long  before  the  "  Twice  Told  Tales  "  came  out.  She 
first  discovered  that  they  were  written  in  Salem,  and  then, 
after  long  search,  that  they  were  written  by  one  Hawthorne. 
It  was  very  difficult  for  the  Peabodys  to  make  his  acquaint- 
ance. At  last  their  culture  and  intellectual  capacity  drew  him 
out,  and  he  began  to  call  at  their  house.  To  the  Peabody 
family  he  confined  his  social  attentions  in  Salem.  .  .  . 
Salem  was  full  of  cultivated  and  brilliant  people  at  that  time, 
but  Hawthorne  could  not  be  induced  to  visit  them.  He  was 
really  too  shy  for  such  social  intercourse ;  his  brain  was  too 
busy  with  its  creations ;  and  he  had  no  gift  whatever  for 
ordinary  conversation.  His  life  had  been  too  long  secluded.' 

"One  reason  for  the  popular  recognition  of  Hawthorne 
with  '  The  Scarlet  Letter/  Henry  James  finds  in  the  fact  that 
its  publication  was  in  the  United  States  a  literary  event  of  the 
first  importance.  The  book  was  the  finest  piece  of  imaginative 
writing  yet  put  forth  in  the  country,  and,  he  says,  ( there  was 
a  consciousness  of  this  in  the  welcome  that  was  given  it,  —  a 
satisfaction  in  the  idea  of  America  having  produced  a  novel 
that  belonged  to  literature,  and  to  the  forefront  of  it.  ... 
^fc  the  best  of  it  was  that  the  thing  was  absolutely  Ameri- 
can; it  belonged  to  the  soil,  to  the  air;  it  came  out  of  the 
heart  of  New  England.' 

"  The  Ha^bhornes  moved  finally  from  Salem  shortly  before 
1  The  Scarlet  Letter's '  appearance,  making  their  next  home  in 
Lenox  up  in  the  Berkshire  Hills." 


206  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

We  now  crossed  over  to  Essex  Street,  and  thence  passed  to 
Union  Street,  where  we  revisited  the  old  house  —  No.  21 —  in 
which  Hawthorne  was  born.  Then  we  turned  into  neighboring 
Herbert  Street  to  the  now  decayed  "Manning  mansion," - 
Nos.  10J  and  12, —  where  part  of  his  boyhood  and  youth  were 
spent,  and  whither  he  returned  again  and  again  in  after  life. 
Next  we  were  in  Charter  Street  before  the  Peabody  house, 
where  Hawthorne  found  his  wife,  and  the  model  for  the  grue- 
some "  Dr.  Grimshawe's "  house.  We  wandered  over  the 
adjacent  earliest  Salem  bury  ing-ground,  this  time  with  Haw- 


THE    PEABODY   OR    "DR.    GRIMSHAWE"    HOUSE. 

thorne's  description  in  hand.  We  called  at  the  Custom  House, 
and  peered  again  into  Hawthorne's  old  office.  And  we  finished 
our  round  of  this  Hawthorne  neighborhood  with  a  glance  at 
the  Turner-Street  house,  marked  the  "House  of  the  Seven 
Gables,"  albeit  the  gables  are  wanting,  and  sufficient  authority 
for  the  distinction  it  assumes. 

The  Union-Street  house,  Percy  had  learned  on  his  first 
visit,  was  of  historical  value  as  well  as  literary,  since  it  was 
built  before  the  witchcraft  frenzy  of  1692.  He  was  aware,  too, 
that  at  the  time  of  Hawthorne's  birth  here,  July  4,  1804,  in 
the  northeast  chamber  of  the  second  story,  it  had  been  a 
Hathorne  house  since  1772,  when  Daniel  Hathorne  acquired  it. 


HAWTHORNE'S   SALEM.  207 

Percy  recalled,  by  the  way,  the  change  in  the  spelling  of  the 
surname  with  the  insertion  of  the  letter  w  by  Nathaniel  Haw- 
thorne. "  This  grandfather  Hathorne,"  I  reminded  him,  "  a 
ship-master  and  captain  of  a  privateer  in  the  Revolution,  was 
grandson  of  John  Hathorne,  that  unrelenting  witchcraft  judge, 
and  great-grandson  of  William  Hathorne,  who  came  over  with 
Winthrop  in  the  Arbella  in  1630,  and  became  a  military  man,  a 
deputy  in  the  General  Court,  tax  collector,  and  magistrate. 
William  Hathorne  was  that  first  ancestor  whose  figure,  Haw- 
thorne wrote,  '  invested  by  family  tradition  with  a  dim  and 
dusty  grandeur,  was  present  in  my  boyish  imagination  as  far 
back  as  I  can  remember.'  With  this  lineage  on  the  father's 
side  was  joined  in  Hawthorne  a  similar  lusty  Puritan  ancestry 
on  the  maternal  side,  his  mother,  daughter  of  Richard  Manning, 
merchant,  being  of  the  Puritan  Manning  family  that  settled  in 
Ipswich  and  Salem  as  early  as  1680." 

Percy  also  knew  that  Hawthorne's  father  was  a  ship-master  ; 
that  he  died  at  Surinam  while  on  a  voyage  in  command  of  the 
Salem  ship  Nabby,  when  Hawthorne  was  but  four  years  old ; 
and  that  the  mother,  left  without  resources,  then  moved  with 
her  three  children  back  to  her  father's  house,  —  the  Herbert- 
Street  homestead,  —  her  brother  Robert  Manning  having  under- 
taken to  provide  for  her.  "  From  that  time  till  her  death,"  I 
added,  "she  became  practically  a  recluse,  and  Hawthorne's 
sisters  grew  also  into  lives  of  retirement.  The  elder,  Eliza- 
beth Manning,  long  outlived  him,  reaching  the  age  of  eighty- 
one  ;  the  younger,  Maria  Louisa,  born  the  year  of  the  father's 
death,  lost  her  life  in  the  burning  of  the  Hudson-River  steamer 
Henry  Clay,  July  27,  1852." 

Percy  was  further  reminded  that  in  this  Herbert-Street 
house,  in  his  "  dismal  chamber  "  on  the  southwest  corner  of  the 
third  story,  overlooking  his  birthplace,  —  for  the  yards  of  the 
two  estates  originally  joined  at  the  rear,  —  Hawthorne  wrote 
his  first  stories ;  that  here,  as  he  afterward  chronicled  in  his 
Note-book,  "  fame  was  won."  "  This,"  I  observed,  "  referred 


208  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

to  the  achievement  of  the  stories  gathered  in  the  '  Twice  Told 
Tales.'  It  was  here,  too,  that  <  Fanshawe  '  was  produced,  and 
those  '  Tales  of  My  Native  Land,'  which  he  afterward  de- 
stroyed. The  periods  of  his  life  in  Herbert  Street  covered 
about  eleven  years  of  his  boyhood ;  about  three  years  after  his 
graduation  from  college ;  a  part  of  the  late  thirties  ;  and  a  few 
months  of  his  married  life,  after  the  birth  of  his  first  child, 
Una,  just  before  and  a  little  after  his  occupation  of  the  survey- 
orship  in  the  Custom  House.  It  was  a  serious  and  solemn  life 
that  his  own  little  family  led  in  this  home,  which  Mrs.  Haw- 
thorne christened  the  *  Castle  Dismal.'  During  his  young  man- 
hood days  here,  before  his  marriage,  this  was  Hawthorne's 
daily  routine  :  study  or  reading  in  the  forenoons,  writing  in 
the  afternoons,  and  in  the  evenings,  sometimes  extending  into 
the  night,  long,  solitary  walks  about  the  silent  town,  or  out 
into  the  country,  or  along  the  sea-coast. 

"  The  Peabody  house,"  I  observed  as  we  approached  this 
dwelling,  in  slightly  better  condition  than  the  other  two 
houses,  though  bereft  of  its  former  refinement,  "came  into 
Hawthorne's  life  after  he  had  won  something  of  fame.  He 
may  have  played  in  his  boyhood  with  the  Peabody  children,  or 
with  Sophia  Amelia,  who  became  his  wife,  for  a  former  home 
of  theirs  was  in  a  brick  block  on  the  opposite  side  of  Union 
Street,  near  his  birthplace,  to  which  the  Peabodys  came  in 
1812,  when  Sophia  was  three  years  old.  The  family  was  a 
cultivated  one,  with  Dr.  Nathaniel  Peabody,  a  man  of  excep- 
tional parts,  at  its  head.  The  eldest  sister,  Mary,  married 
Horace  Mann,  the  eminent  American  educator  and  developer 
of  the  common  school  system,  and  after  his  death  she  wrote 
his  biography.  The  next  oldest,  Elizabeth  Palmer,  introduced 
the  kindergarten  system  into  this  country,  and  was  a  teacher 
of  wide  scope,  a  writer  of  educational  books,  and  a  noble 
philanthropist.  It  was  Elizabeth  who  (  discovered '  Hawthorne^ 
as  we  have  seen ;  and  it  was  through  her  influence  that  his 
worldly  affairs  were  from  time  to  time  fostered.  Sophia 


HAWTHORNE'S   SALEM.  209 

Feabody  hud  an  artistic  sense  which  was  cultivated  in  drawing 
and  painting.  Before  her  marriage  she  drew  an  illustration 
for  Hawthorne's  '  The  Gentle  Boy,'  which  was  published  in  a 
special  edition  in  1839.  Theirs  was  a  long  engagement. 
They  were  finally  married  in  Boston,  after  the  Peabodys  had 
removed  there,  in  July,  1842 ;  and  their  married  life  began  in 
the  <  Old  Manse/  at  Concord." 

Hawthorne's  fanciful  description  of  the  Peabody  house  in 
his  sketch  of  "  Dr.  Grimshawe's "  house,  I  had  copied,  and 
Percy  made  note  of  the  real  and  the  fancy  in  the  picture  as 
he  read  "it : 

...  It  stood  in  a  shabby  by-street,  and  cornered  on  a  graveyard 
with  which  the  house  communicated  by  a  back  door,  so  that  with  a  hop, 
skip,  and  jump  from  the  threshold,  across  a  flat  tombstone,  the  two 
children  were  in  the  daily  habit  of  using  the  dismal  cemetery  as  their 
playground.  ...  It  did  not  appear  to  be  an  ancient  structure,  nor  one 
that  could  ever  have  been  the  abode  of  a  very  wealthy  or  prominent 
family, — a  three-story,  wooden  house,  perhaps  a  century  old,  low- 
studded,  with  a  square  front  standing  right  upon  the  street,  and  a  small 
enclosed  porch,  containing  the  main  entrance,  affording  a  glimpse  up  and 
down  the  street  through  an  oval  window  on  each  side,  its  characteristic 
was  decent  respectability,  not  sinking  below  the  boundary  of  the  genteel." 

Then  turning  into  the  graveyard,  Percy  read  on  from  my 
extract,  this  sketch  :  — 

"  Here  were  old  brick  tombs  with  curious  sculpture  on  them,  and 
quaint  gravestones,  some  of  which  bore  puffy  little  cherubs,  and  one  or 
two  others  the  effigies  of  eminent  Puritans,  wrought  out  to  a  button,  a 
fold  of  the  ruff,  and  a  wrinkle  of  the  skull-cap  ;  and  these  frowned  upon 
the  children  as  if  death  had  not  made  them  a  whit  more  genial  than  they 
were  in  life.  But  the  children  were  of  a  temper  to  be  more  encouraged 
by  the  good-natured  smiles  of  the  puffy  cherubs,  than  frightened  or  dis- 
tressed by  the  sour  Puritans.  .  .  .  This  graveyard  was  the  most  ancient 
in  the  town.  The  clay  of  the  original  settlers  had  been  incorporated  with 
the  soil.  .  .  .  Here  .  .  .  used  to  be  specimens  of  common  English 
flowers  which  could  not  be  accounted  for,  —  unless,  perhaps,  they  had 
sprung  from  some  English  maiden's  heart,  where  the  intense  love  of  those 
homely  things,  and  regret  of  them  in  the  foreign  land,  had  conspired 


210  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

together  to  keep  their  vivifying  principle,  and  cause  its  growth  after  the 
poor  girl  was  buried.  Be  that  as  it  might,  in  this  grave  had  been  hidden 
from  sight  many  a  broad,  bluff  visage  of  husbandmen.  .  .  .  Here,  too, 
the  sods  had  covered  the  faces  of  men  known  to  history,  and  revered 
when  not  a  trace  of  distinguishable  dust  remained  of  them  ;  personages 
whom  tradition  told  about  ;  and  here,  mixed  up  with  successive  crops  of 
native-born  Americans,  had  been  ministers,  captains,  matrons,  virgins 
good  and  evil,  tough  and  tender,  turned  up  and  battered  down  by  the 
sexton's  spade,  over  and  over  again  ;  while  every  blade  of  grass  had  its 
relation  with  the  human  brotherhood  of  the  old  town.  .  .  .  Thus  rippled 
and  surged  with  its  hundreds  of  little  billows  the  old  graveyard  about  the 
house  which  cornered  upon  it ;  it  made  the  street  gloomy  so  that  people 
did  not  altogether  like  to  pass  along  the  high  wooden  fence  that  shut  it 
in  ;  and  the  old  house  itself,  covering  ground  which  else  had  been  thickly 
sown  with  bodies,  'partook  of  its  dreariness,  because  it  hardly  seemed 
possible  that  the  dead  people  should  not  get  up  out  of  their  graves  and 
steal  in  to  warm  themselves  at  this  convenient  fireside." 

With  the  exception  of  a  few  of  the  "  puffy  cherubs,"  and 
the  tombs  or  graves  of  men  "  known  to  history,"  as  Governor 
Bradstreet,  John  Hathorne,  the  witch  judge,  and  Judge  Lynde, 
there  was  little  that  Percy  could  identify  from  this  descrip- 
tion. Somewhat  more  serviceable  was  this  earlier  sketch, 
given  in  the  "American  Note-Book,"  from  which,  doubtless, 
the  other  description  was  constructed : 

"  In  the  old  burial-ground,  Charter  Street,  a  slate  gravestone,  carved 
round  the  borders,  to  the  memory  of  '  Colonel  John  Hathorne  Esq.',  who 
died  in  1717.  This  was  the  witch-judge.  The  stone  is  sunk  deep  into 
the  earth,  and  leans  forward,  and  the  grass  grows  very  long  around  it  ; 
and  on  account  of  the  moss,  it  was  rather  difficult  to  make  out  the  date. 
Other  Hathornes  lie  buried  in  a  range  with  him  on  either  side.  In  a 

corner  of  the  burial-ground,  close  under  Dr.  P 's  [Peabody's]  garden 

fence,  are  the  most  ancient  stones  remaining  in  the  graveyard  ;  moss- 
grown,  deeply  sunken.  One  to  '  Dr.  John  Swinnerton,  Physician ' 
[brought  into  the  '  House  of  the  Seven  Gables '  and  the  '  Dolliver 
Romance']  in  1688;  another  to  his  wife.  There,  too,  is  the  grave  of 
Nathaniel  Mather,  the  younger  brother  of  Cotton,  and  mentioned  in  the 
'  Magnalia  '  as  a  hard  student,  and  of  great  promise.  '  An  aged  man  at 
nineteen  years,'  saith  the  gravestone.  It  affected  me. deeply  when  I  had 
cleared  away  the  grass  from  the  half-buried  stone,  and  read  the  name. 


HAWTHORNE'S  SALEM. 


An  apple-tree  or  two  hang  over  these  old  graves,  and  throw  down  the 
blighted  fruit  on  Nathaniel  Mather's  grave,  — he  blighted  too.  .  .  .  [Note 
made  in  1838.] 

Percy  was  curious  about  that  Nathaniel  Mather,  the 
scholar,  who  died  so  young  with  such  an  old  head.  So  I  gave 
a  few  extracts  drawn  from  his  brother  Samuel's  pamphlet 
upon  him,  bearing  the  quaint  title  of  "  Early  Piety,  Exampled 
in  the  Life  and  Death  of  Mr.  Nathaniel  Mather,  who,  having 
become  at  the  age  of  19,  an  instance  of  more  than  com- 
mon Learning  and  Virtue,  changed  Earth*  for  Heaven,  October 
17,  1688."  I  quoted  also  from  the  eulogy  of  his  elder  brother 
Cotton,  whose  phrase  "an  old  man  without  gray  hairs  upon 
him  "  when  he  died,  was  condensed  into  the  line  on  the  tomb- 
stone. Says  this  brother : 

44  From  his  very  childhood  his  Book  was,  perhaps,  as  dear  to  him  as 
his  Play,  and  thus  he  grew  particularly  acquainted  with  Church  History 
at  a  rate  not  usual  in  those  that  were  about  thrice  as  Old  as  he.  ...  He 
afforded  not  so  much  a  Pattern  as  a  Caution  to  young  students  for  it  may 
be  truly  written  on  his  grave,  Study  Killed  Him.  .  .  .  When  he  was  but 
twelve  years  old  he  was  admitted  into  the  college  by  strict  examiners  ; 
and  many  months  after  this  passed  not  before  he  had  accurately  gone  over 
all  the  old  Testament  in  Hebrew,  as  well  as  the  New  in  Greek ;  besides  his 
going  through  all  the  Liberal  Sciences  before  many  other  designers  for 
Philosophy  do  so  much  as  begin  to  look  into  them.  .  .  .  He  commenced 
Bachelor  of  Arts  at  the  age  of  sixteen,  and  in  the  act  entertained  the 
auditory  with  an  Hebrew  oration.  .  .  .  His  second  degree  after  seven 
years  being  in  the  college  he  took  just  before  death  gave  him  a  third, 
which  last  was  a  promotion  infinitely  beyond  either  of  the  former.  .  .  . 
[He  was]  admirably  capable  of  arguing  about  almost  every  subject  that 
fell  within  the  Concernments  of  a  Learned  Man." 

"  Nathaniel  Mather's  morbid  piety  while  acquiring  all  this 
learning,"  I  observed,  "  reflects  the  stiff  theology  of  his  time. 
When  a  mere  child  he  repented  in  sackcloth  and  ashes  that  he 
had  '  whittled  on  the  Sabbath  Day,  and  thus  reproached  his 
God  by  his  youthful  sports/  At  fourteen  he  recorded  in  his 
diary,  *  How  little  have  I  improved  this  time  to  the  Honour  of 


212 


LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 


God  as  I  should  have  done.'  *  Nor/  his  brother  Cotton  chroni- 
cled, «  did  he  slubber  his  prayers  with  hasty  amputations,  but 
wrestled  in  them  for  a  good  part  of  an  hour  together.'" 

"  Poor  boy !  "  ejaculated  Percy,  and  we  turned  to  cheer- 
fuller  things. 

A  little  walk  over  to  and  along  Derby  Street  brought  us  to 
the  Custom  House.  Our  call  was  brief,  for  the  reminders  of 


HAWTHORNE'S     CHESTNUT     STREET     HOUSE. 

Hawthorne's  service  here,  from  1846  to  1849,  are  now  gone 
(Percy  remembered  that  his  desk  is  preserved  in  the  Essex 
Institute  up  on  Essex  Street).  Another  short  walk,  and  we 
were  at  Turner  Street,  and  the  so  called  "  Seven  Gables " 
house. 

As  to  the  identity  of  this  house,  I  remarked :  "  Other  old 
Salem    houses   have   been    fixed    upon    as    the    house    of    the 


HAWTHORNE'S  SALEM.  213 

romance,  but  Hawthorne  himself  has  stated  that  it  was  copied 
from  no  actual  edifice :  that  it  was  simply  a  reproduction  in  a 
general  way  of  a  style  of  colonial  architecture,  examples  of 
which  survived  to  the  time  of  his  youth.  The  slender  ground 
upon  which  the  claim  for  this  house  rests  is  found  in  these 
facts  and  statements:  that  the  Ingersoll  family,  relatives  of 
the  Hawthornes,  long  lived  in  it,  and  that  Hawthorne  fre- 
quently visited  them ;  that  one  day  Miss  Ingersoll  told  him  it 
once  had  seven  gables ;  that  coming  down  stairs,  after  she  had 


HAWTHORNE'S     DEARBORN      STREET     HOUSE. 

shown  him  the  beams  and  mortises  in  the  attic,  he  murmured 
half  aloud,  <  House  of  the  Seven  Gables,  that  sounds  well ; ' 
and  that  afterward  appeared  the  romance  bearing  this  name  — 
it  was  nearly  finished  before  the  title  was  selected.  No,  this 
romance  was  not  in  part  written  here  in  Salem;  it  belongs 
wholly  to  the  Lenox  home  period. 

"  This  Turner  Street  house,"  I  added,  "  has  a  less  ques- 
tioned distinction  as  the  place  where  the  'Tales  of  Grand- 
father's Chair '  originated.  And  it  is  interesting  as  one  of  the 
oldest  houses  in  Salem,  dating  from  1662." 

Other  Hawthorne  houses  in  other  parts  of    Salem, — the 


214 


LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 


Chestnut-Street  house  (No.  18)  and  the  Dearborn-Street  house, 
in  North  Salem,  —  had  lesser  interest  than  those  we  had  now 
visited.  The  former  was  the  family  home  for  about  a  year  and 
a  half,  beginning  with  the  surveyorship  period  in  1846,  the  early 
part  of  which  Mrs.  Hawthorne  spent  in  Boston,  where,  in  June, 
1846,  Julian  was  born.  The  Dearborn-Street  home  was  of  an 
earlier  date.  It  was  Nathaniel's  mother's  house,  built  for  her 
by  her  brother  on  land  adjoining  the  later  Manning  estate. 

Hawthorne  lived  here 
between  1828  and  1832. 
Then  the  family  returned 
to  the  Herbert-Street 
house. 

There  remained  one 
more  Hawthorne  land- 
mark, worth  visiting 
however,  —  the  little  old 
building  by  the  corner 
of  Washington  and  Fed- 
eral streets,  in  which 
was  the  school  of  Joseph 
E.  Worcester,  the  com- 
piler of  Worcester's  Dic- 
tionary, who  was  the 
boy  Hawthorne's  school- 
master. 

Following  up  Fed- 
eral Street  toward  its 
head  we  reached  the 
home  of  Abner  C.  Goodell  ( born  in  Danvers,  1831  — ),  the  his- 
torical student  and  writer,  whose  literary  monument  is  the 
"Acts  and  Resolves  of  the  Province  of  Massachusetts  Bay" 
with  his  copious  and  scholarly  notes  as  editor,  the  most  valua- 
ble work  of  all  of  this  nature  undertaken  by  the  state.  This 
house,  —  No.  4  Federal  Street,  —  quaint  and  curious  in  itself, 


ABNER     C.     GOODELL. 


HAWTHORNE'S  SALEM.  216 

has  additional  interest  because  it  contains  a  portion  of  the 
original  wooden  frame  of  the  jail  in  which  the  victims  of 
the  witchcraft  delusion  were  incarcerated,  and  from  which 
was  the  great  "  jail  delivery  "  in  May,  1693,  when  the  frenzy 
passed. 

Again  in  Essex  Street,  we  revisited  the  Salem  Athenaeum, 
Plummer  Hall,  on  the  site  of  the  birthplace  of  William 
Hickling  Prescott  (born  1796  — died  in  Boston,  1859),  the 
historian.  Percy  was  shown  a  picture  of  the  house  in  which 
Prescott  was  born,  —  a  typical  old-time  Salem  mansion, —  and 
was  told  its  history  in  brief.  It  was  built  originally  by  Nathan 
Reed,  who  had  the  distinction  of  being  the  first,  though  unrec- 
ognized, American  inventor  of  a  paddle-wheel  steamboat ;  and 
after  the  Prescotts  moved  from  here,  it  was  a  Peabody  man- 
sion, famed  for  its  elegant  hospitality.  Of  the  Prescotts  here, 
he  was  told  about  the  father,  Judge  William  Prescott,  who  was 
born  in  Pepperell,  Massachusetts,  son  of  Colonel  William  Pres- 
cott, commander  of  the  American  forces  at  Bunker  Hill,  and 
who  became  an  eminent  jurist  and  one  of  the  ablest  New  Eng- 
landers  of  his  time.  He  lived  in  Salem  from  1789  to  1808,  and 
then  moved  to  Boston.  His  wife,  the  historian's  mother,  was  a 
daughter  of  Thomas  Hickling,  of  Salem,  American  consul  at 
St.  Michael's  for  half  a  century.  It  was  from  him  that  the 
historian  derived  his  middle  name.  Since  Prescott  was  but 
eleven  years  old  when  the  family  moved  to  Boston,  we  should 
find  his  literary  landmarks  mostly  there,  I  observed. 

The  site  of  the  Athenaeum  also  had  interest  as  that  of  the 
Salem  home  of  Governor  Simon  Bradstreet,  upon  his  second 
marriage,  with  the  widow  Gardner,  in  1676.  The  Athenaeum 
itself  was  identified  with  the  beginning  of  the  career  of  Edwin 
P.  Whipple  (born  1819  —  died  1886),  the  eminent  critic  and  es- 
sayist, to  whom  we  had  alluded  in  connection  with  James  T. 
Fields  when  at  Portsmouth.  Whipple,  born  down  the  North 
Shore,  in  Gloucester,  came  to  Salem  when  a  youth  and  was  em- 
ployed in  a  bank.  Meanwhile  he  served  some  time  as  librarian 


216 


LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 


of  the  Athenaeum,  and  it  was  here  that  he  acquired  his  literary 
tastes  and  began  his  essay  writing.  "  We  shall  also  visit  his 
principal  literary  workshop,"  I  promised,  "'  in  Boston." 

Our  Salem  jaunt  ended  with  a  look  at  the  quaint  little 
house,  No.  154  Federal  Street,  on  the  south  side  of  the  city,  in 
which  Jones  Very  (born  1813  —  died  1880)  was  born  and  lived 
his  gentle  life  through. 

"  Jones  Very  ?  "  queried  Percy,  "  who  was  he  ?  " 


HOME    OF    JONES    VERY. 

"  I  do  not  wonder  at  your  question.  Few  remember  him 
now ;  and  his  single  volume  of  essays  and  poems,  some  of  them 
of  rare  charm,  slumbers  quietly  on  the  remotest  library  shelf. 
Yet  it  was  predicted  when  he  died,  twenty  odd  years  ago,  that 
his  work  would  long  survive.  One  of  his  eulogists  declared 
that  his  writings  had  lent  <a  spiritual  and  personal  interest 
to  the  scenery  about  Salem  which  would  prove  a  worthy  com- 
plement to  the  historic  and  romantic  pageantry  with  which  his 


HAWTHORNE'S  SALEM.  217 

friend  Hawthorne's  brilliant  imagination  had  already  filled  its 
streets.'  He  was  the  personal  friend  of  Emerson,  the  elder 
Dana,  Channing,  and  James  Freeman  Clarke ;  and  it  was  at  the 
instance  of  Emerson,  who  assisted  in  its  preparation,  that  his 
book,  'Essays  and  Poems  of  Jones  Very/  was  published  in 
1839. 

"  Jones  Very  was  one  of  a  family  of  brother  and  sisters  all 
of  whom  had  a  genius  for  verse-making.  His  father  was  a 
ship-master,  and  so  was  his  mother's  father,  —  an  uncle  of  his 
father.  When  a  lad  he  made  voyages  with  his  father  to  Kussia 
and  to  New  Orleans.  The  father  died  in  1824,  and  he  became 
a  store-boy  in  an  auction-room.  He  fitted  himself  for  college, 
and  entering  Harvard  in  the  last  term  of  the  sophomore  year  of 
1834,  graduated  in  1836,  second  in  his  class.  He  became  a 
tutor  of  Greek  in  the  college,  and  attended  the  Divinity  School. 
He  was  subsequently  licensed  to  preach,  but  he  never  had  a 
parish.  His  life  and  work  thereafter  were  based  on  his  belief 
that  he  had  surrendered  his  will  to  the  will  of  God  and  become 
a  passive  instrument  of  the  Divine  Spirit.  Of  his  poetry  James 
Freeman  Clarke  wrote,  f  I  think  there  are  a  few  of  his  poems 
that  will  last  with  those  of  George  Herbert  and  Henry  Vaughan. 
His  poetic  vein  was  a  slender  rill,  but  pure,  clean,  coming  from 
a  deep  source,  and  like  that  of  Siloam  that  flowed 

'Fast  by  the  oracle  of  God.'" 


We  now  took  a  steam  train  for  Lynn,  and  engaging  a 
carriage  at  the  station  there  drove  over  to  Nahant.  In  the 
long  ago,  I  told  Percy,  this  was  the  favorite  summering  place 
of  Prescott,  Motley,  Bancroft,  Longfellow,  Agassiz,  and  others 
of  their  kind ;  and  here  "  Hiawatha "  in  part  was  written. 
But  their  habitations  no  longer  exist ;  so  we  could  visit  them 
only  in  imagination  while  we  traversed  the  rocky  point  and 
listened  to  the  sea.  Percy,  however,  found  some  compensation 
in  passing  glances  at  the  summer  homes  of  the  modern  writers 


218  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

who  sustain  the  literary  atmosphere  of  Nahant  —  the  seat  of 
Senator  Henry  Cabot  Lodge,  whose  excursions  into  American 
history  have  broadened  his  reputation  as  a  "  scholar  in  poli- 
tics "  ;  and  the  villa  of  Judge  Kobert  Grant,  the  essayist  and 
novelist  who  treats  with  such  frank  and  clever  pen  our 
American  social  tendencies  and  foibles. 

Then,  our  ramble  finished,  we  sat  down  to  a  toothsome  fish 
dinner  at  the  tavern  of  the  place ;  and  in  the  late  evening, 
happily  by  moonlight,  we  returned  by  the  last  boat  to  Boston. 


XIV. 

A   DAY  ABOUT    BOSTON. 

The  Athenaeum  and  the  Anthology  Club  of  a  century  ago. — The 
Monthly  Anthology  and  the  North  American  Review.  —  Homes  of  a 
group  of  historians  :  Ticknor,  Motley,  Prescott,  and  Parkman.  — 
Story  of  their  lives  and  work.  —  Glimpses  of  their  literary  work- 
shops.— Birthplace  of  Wendell  Phillips.  — Thomas  Gold  Appleton. — 
The  crossed  swords  in  Prescott1  s  library. 

BOSTON  literary  landmarks  now  engaged  us  for  a  day. 
Percy  was  surprised  at  the  number  still  remaining  of  homes 
and  other  places  identified  with  those  writers  who  gave  to  the 
historic  city  its  fame  as  an  American  literary  center  in  the  first 
half  of  the  last  century  ;  for  I  had,  at  the  outset,  prepared 
him  for  disappointments  by  remarking  the  repeated  recon- 
structions of  the  city  which  have  ruthlessly  swept  away  many 
of  its  choicest  monuments. 

We  began  with  a  call  at  the  Boston  Athenaeum  on  the 
slope  of  Beacon  Hill,  since  this  nearly  a  century-old  institution 
(incorporated  in  1807),  I  explained,  is  a  result  of  one  of  the 
earliest  efforts  after  the  Revolution  for  the  cultivation  of 
"  polite  literature "  in  the  new  republic.  And  within  the 
serene  shades  of  this  classic  building,  ensconced  in  a  quiet 
corner  of  an  alcove  overlooking  the  elm-shaded  Granary 
burying-ground  where  lies  thick  the  dust  of  colonial  and 
provincial  worthies,  we  had  as  preliminary  to  our  excursion,  a 
little  whispered  talk  of  the  pioneers  of  the  Anthology  Club. 
For  the  Athenaeum  sprang  from  this  club,  organized  in  1804, 
a  group  of  worthy  young  litterateurs,  whose  labors  formed,  as 
the  elder  Quincy  recorded,  "an  epoch  in  the  intellectual 
history  of  the  United  States." 

219 


220 


LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 


"  These  young  men,"  I  remarked,  "  came  together  originally 
at  the  instance  of  the  Rev.  William  Emerson  —  the  father  of 
Ralph  Waldo  Emerson  —  for  the  conduct  of  a  periodical. 
This  periodical  had  been  started  under  the  name  of  The 
Monthly  Anthology,  a  Magazine  of  Polite  Literature,  with  the 
opening  of  the  nineteenth  century  by  one  Phineas  Adams,  a 
native  of  historic  Lexington  and  a  Harvard  graduate;  and, 


THE    BOSTON      ATHEN/EUM. 


being  unremunerative,  it  had  been  placed  by  the  printers  in 
Mr.  Emerson's  hands.  The  club  changed  the  name  to  The 
Monthly  Anthology  and  Boston  Review,  and  issued  six  octavo 
volumes,  which  constitute,  so  Quincy  held,  <one  of  the  most 
lasting  and  honorable  monuments  of  the  taste  and  literature  of 
the  period.'  Within  the  first  few  months  of  their  organization 
the  club  started  a  movement  for  a  semi-public  library,  and 
from  this  the  Athenaeum  evolved. 


A    DAY  AliOUT  BOSTON.  221 

"  There  were  only  half  a  dozen  of  the  group  at  the  begin- 
ning as  *  founders.'  William  Emerson,  their  leader,  was  espe- 
cially distinguished  for  literary  taste.  He  was  one  of  the 
most  constant  contributors  to  the  Anthology,  as  well  as  its  edi- 
tor for  the  longest  period.  The  Rev.  John  Sylvester  John 
Gardiner,  the  club's  first  president,  was  an  exceptionally  fine 
classical  scholar.  He  had  been  educated  in  England  by  the 
celebrated  Dr.  Samuel  Parr.  Later  he  became  rector  of  Trinity 
Church.  He  kept  a  classical  school  in  his  study,  in  which 
were  trained  several  youths  who  afterward  attained  distinction 
in  literature,  among  them  George  Ticknor  and  William  Hick- 
ling  Prescott.  He  was  a  frequent  contributor  to  the  Anthology. 
William  S.  Shaw,  the  club's  first  treasurer,  was  a  nephew  of 
Abigail  Adams,  wife  of  President  John  Adams.  For  a  while 
he  served  President  Adams  as  private  secretary,  and  lived  with 
the  family,  then  in  Philadelphia.  During  this  time,  as  he 
wrote  a  friend,  his  mind  became  '  deeply  impressed  by  the  low- 
ness  of  the  standard  of  literature  in  the  United  States,  and 
earnestly  possessed  with  a  desire  of  adopting  measures  to 
enlarge  and  elevate  it.'  As  one  means  of  aiding  its  advance- 
ment, he  began  a  collection  of  literary  and  political  tracts,  which 
grew  to  large  proportions,  and  subsequently  became  a  posses- 
sion of  the  Athenaeum.  He  was  twenty-six  when  the  club  was 
formed.  William  Tudor,  Shaw's  junior  by  a  year,  was  simi- 
larly inspired.  He  was  the  founder  of  the  North  American 
Review,  started  in  1814,  ten  years  after  the  formation  of  the 
club,  '  to  open  a  field  for  the  successful  pursuit  of  general  lit- 
erature and  the  political  relations  of  the  country.'  Three- 
fourths  of  its  first  four  volumes  are  said  to  have  been  from  his 
pen.  He  also  published  two  or  three  books  of  merit,  one  of 
them  being  the  life  of  the  patriot  James  Otis.  Arthur  May- 
nard  Walter,  the  club's  first  secretary,  was  one  of  the  most 
promising  of  the  younger  Boston  litterateurs  of  the  time,  and 
died  in  his  twenty-seventh  year,  on  the  threshold  of  a  rare 
literary  career.  He  was  a  great-grandson  of  Increase  Mather, 


222  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGED. 

and  on  the  maternal  side  a  descendant  of  Chief -Justice  Ben- 
jamin Lynde,  whose  tomb  you  saw  in  the  old  Charter-Street 
bury  ing-ground  in  Salem.  He  entered  Harvard  in  his  four- 
teenth year,  and  while  there  was  distinguished  for  literary 
attainments.  During  two  years  in  Europe  he  engaged  in  lit- 
erary studies.  He  wrote  much  for  the  Anthology.  Joseph 
Stevens  Buckminster  was  another  young  man  of  exceptional 
promise,  who  died  prematurely-,  at  twenty-eight.  He  was  a 
son  of  Joseph  Buckminster,  the  Portsmouth,  New  Hampshire, 
minister.  His  precocity  was  astonishing.  At  four,  it  is 
averred,  he  began  to  study  the  Latin  Grammar,  and  was  intro- 
duced to  the  first  elements  of  Greek.  He  prepared  for  Har- 
vard at  twelve,  and  was  graduated  with  high  honors.  He  was 
a  tutor  in  his  teens  ;  at  twenty  he  was  minister  of  the  Brattle- 
Street  Church  in  Boston  ;  and  at  twenty-seven,  lecturer  on 
Biblical  Criticism  in  the  college  at  Cambridge.  His  early 
piety  was  as  marked  as  his  early  learning.  We  are  told  that 
*  between  the  ages  of  five  and  seven  he  was  accustomed,  in  the 
absence  of  his  father,  to  assemble  the  domestics  of  the  family, 
and  with  great  earnestness  and  solemnity  to  read  to  them  a 
sermon,  repeat  the  Lord's  Prayer,  and  sing  a  hymn.'  As  a 
preacher  the  elegance  and  genius  which  he  displayed  were 
called  remarkable.  Edmund  Trowbridge  Dana,  the  sixth  of 
the  founders,  was  the  elder  brother  of  the  poet,  Richard  Henry 
Dana,  and  a  man  of  active  pen.  Later  the  poet-brother  joined 
the  club ;  also  George  Ticknor  and  John  Thornton  Kirkland, 
then  minister  of  the  New  South  Church,  in  which  he  succeeded 
Oliver  Everett,  father  of  Edward  Everett,  and  afterward  presi- 
dent of  Harvard  College. 

"  It  is  admitted  that  what  the  Anthology  Club  men  accom- 
plished in  living  contributions  to  our  literature  was  slender. 
But  we  must  remember  that  they  were  pioneers  in  an  almost 
un worked  field.  It  was  not  till  1809  that  Irving's  '  Knicker- 
bocker's History  of  New  York/  with  which  our  literary  his- 
torians date  the  real  beginning  of  our  distinctively  national 


A   DAY  ABOUT  BOSTON.  223 

literature,  appeared.  It  was  ten  years  afterward  that  the  Edin- 
burgh Review  asked  contemptuously,  <Who  reads  an  American 
book  ? '  The  greatest  achievement  of  these  young  men  of  let- 
ters was  the  elevation  of  the  American  literary  standard. 

i(  This  Athenaeum  is  especially  their  landmark.  They 
took  for  its  model  the  then  newly  established  Athenaeum  of 
Liverpool.  This  building  is  its  fourth  home,  and  is  identified 
with  many  Boston  authors  as  their  favorite  studying  or  work- 
ing place." 

A  few  steps  from  the  Athenaeum  brought  us  to  the  first  of 
a  series  of  homes  of  historians.  This  was  the  "Ticknor 
house,"  home  of  George  Ticknor  (born  1791  —  died  1871),  around 
the  Park-Street  corner  of  Beacon  Street,  facing  the  unique 
Boston  Common.  We  saw  only  a  remnant  of  the  once  stately 
mansion  in  the  present  business  building.  A  semblance  of  its 
outward  appearance  in  Ticknor' s  time  alone  remains.  Haw- 
thorne, however,  has  preserved  a  pleasant  sketch  of  its  interior 
with  Ticknor  in  his  library ;  and  I  quoted  this  passage  from 
his  "  Note  Book,"  dated  May,  1850 : 

"A  marble  hall,  a  wide  and  easy  staircase,  a  respectable  old  man- 
servant, evidently  long  at  home  in  the  mansion,  to  admit  us.  We  entered 
the  library,  Mr.  Folsom  considerably  in  advance,  as  being  familiar  with 
the  house,  and  I  heard  Mr.  Ticknor  greet  him  in  friendly  terms.  .  .  , 
Then  I  was  introduced  and  received  with  great  distinction,  but  yet  without 
any  ostentatious  flourish  of  courtesy.  Mr.  Ticknor  has  a  great  head,  and 
his  hair  is  gray  or  grayish.  You  recognize  in  him  at  once  the  man  who 
knows  the  world,  the  scholar,  too,  which  probably  is  his  more  distinctive 
character,  though  a  little  more  under  the  surface.  He  was  in  his  slippers  ; 
a  volume  of  his  book  was  open  on  a  table,  and  apparently  he  had  been 
engaged  in  revising  or  annotating  it.  His  library  is  a  stately  and  beauti- 
ful room  for  a  private  dwelling,  and  itself  looks  large  and  rich.  The  fire- 
place has  a  white  marble  frame  about  it,  sculptured  with  figures  and 
reliefs.  Over  it  hung  a  portrait  of  Sir  Walter  Scott,  a  copy,  I  think,  of 
the  one  that  represents  him  in  Melrose  Abbey." 

"  This  portrait,"  I  interjected,  "was,  in  fact,  an  original,  painted 
by  the  American  artist,  Leslie,  at  Scott's  request,  for  Ticknor. 


224 


L I  TEE  A  R  Y  PIL  GUI  MA  GES. 


"  Then  Hawthorne  muses,  '  Methinks  he  must  have  spent  a 
happy  life  (as  happiness  goes  among  mortals)  writing  his  great 
three-volumed  book  for  twenty  years ;  writing  it  not  for  bread, 
nor  with  any  uneasy  desire  of  fame,  but  only  with  a  purpose  to 
achieve  something  true  and  enduring.' '' 

"  What  was  this  great  work  ?  "  Percy  asked,  confessing 
that  he  had  but  a  vague  idea  of  Ticknor's  accomplishments. 

"His  •  History  of  Span- 
ish Literature/  upon  which 
his  reputation  as  a  scholarly 
historian  rests.  Yes,  it  was 
written  entirely  in  this 
house,  in  the  *  stately  li- 
brary/ For  this  was  Tick- 
nor's home  through  forty- 
one  years,  from  the  late 
twenties,  sometime  before 
this  work  was  begun,  until 
his  death  at  eighty.  Dur- 
ing this  period,  except 
when  he  was  abroad  at 
long  intervals,  he  made 
this  home  a  place  of  re- 
fined hospitality,  a  choice 
literary  center  in  the  ris- 
ing literary  town."  Then  at  Percy's  request,  I  proceeded  to 
sketch  his  career  somewhat  in  detail. 

"  Ticknor  was  fortunately  born.  In  his  father  were  com- 
bined the  culture  of  the  scholar  and  the  sagacity  of  the  man 
of  affairs  j  his  mother  was  a  woman  of  refined  mind  and  per- 
ceptions. Both  father  and  mother  had  been  school-teachers. 
Elisha  Ticknor,  son  of  a  Connecticut  River  farmer,  after  grad- 
uating from  Dartmouth  College,  became  the  head  of  a  pre- 
paratory school  connected  with  that  college,  and  afterward  a 
teacher  of  private  and  public  schools.  He  made  his  contri- 


GEORGE     TICKNOR. 


A   DAY  ABOUT  BOSTON.  225 

bution  to  literature  in  an  English  grammar,  —  'English  Exer- 
cises '  it  was  called  —  a  text-book,  which  was  in  general  use 
till  superseded  by  Lindley  Murray's  work.  From  the  school- 
master's desk  he  passed  to  trade ;  and  as  a  grocer  in  Boston 
he  acquired  a  modest  competence  which  enabled  him  to  retire 
in  1812,  nine  years  before  his  death.  George  Ticknor's  mother 
was  also  of  a  farming  family,  living  in  the  hill-town  of  Sha- 
ron, some  eighteen  miles  south  of  Boston.  She  was  a  widow 
with  four  little  children  when  his  father  married  her,  and  had 
kept  a  private  school  for  girls  in  Boston  to  which  were  sent 
the  daughters  of  leading  families  of  the  town.  Her  first  hus- 
band had  served  as  surgeon  in  the  Revolutionary  army,  and  at 
the  time  of  his  death  was  a  young  Boston  physician.  He  was 
Benjamin  Curtis,  a  nephew  of  the  minister  of  Sharon.  Of  the 
four  children  of  this  first  marriage,  with  whom  George  Tick- 
nor  was  f  brought  up/  one  became  the  father  of  two  eminent 
Curtises,  —  Judge  Benjamin  E-.  Curtis  of  the  United  States 
Supreme  Bench,  and  George  Ticknor  Curtis,  the  biographer 
of  Daniel  Webster. 

"  George  Ticknor  was  the  only  child  of  his  father's  mar- 
riage. His  birthplace  was  a  comfortable  house  in  Essex 
Street,  at  that  time  a  delightful  quarter  of  Boston,  with  great 
elms  shading  it,  but  long  ago  rebuilt  in  business  blocks.  He 
never  attended  a  regular  school,  but  was  so  well  fitted  under 
the  tuition  of  his  scholarly  father  that  he  received  a  certificate 
of  admission  to  Dartmouth  when  he  was  only  ten  years  old. 
He  actually  entered  at  the  age  of  fourteen,  admitted  as  a 
junior.  Before  he  went  to  Hanover  he  had  acquired  a  smat- 
tering of  French  and  Spanish  from  a  tutor,  and  had  studied 
Greek  a  while  with  Ezekiel  Webster,  brother  of  Daniel 
Webster,  who  had  a  private  school  near  the  Ticknor  home ; 
but  it  soon  appeared  that  this  pedagogue  knew  less  of  Greek 
than  the  boy's  father.  After  leaving  college,  he  was  put  with 
John  Sylvester  John  Gardiner  in  Boston,  to  study  the  classics. 
Mr.  Gardiner  received  his  pupils,  as  Mr.  Ticknor  has  related, 


226  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

'in  his  slippers  and  dressing  gown/  Being  older  than  the 
other  scholars,  —  Ticknor  was  now  about  seventeen  —  he  was 
often  invited  to  join  a  circle  of  clever  persons  at  choice  little 
suppers  of  which  the  rector  was  fond,  and  so  began  an  agree- 
able acquaintance  with  some  of  the  brightest  of  the  glowing 
literary  lights  of  the  town. 

"After  nearly  three  years  with  Mr.  Gardiner,  Ticknor 
took  up  law-reading,  still  continuing,  however,  his  Greek  and 
Latin  studies.  He  was  admitted  to  the  bar,  and  practiced  for  a 
year,  meeting  his  office  expenses.  Then  he  abandoned  the  law, 
resolved  to  indulge  his  dominating  desire  for  the  pursuit  of 
letters.  It  was  determined  that  he  should  go  abroad  for  fur- 
ther study,  in  those  days  a  rare  undertaking.  In  preparation 
for  this  work  he  spent  some  months  striving  to  acquaint 
himself  with  foreign  educational  institutions,  and  particularly 
with  the  German  language.  But  such  was  then  the  literary 
poverty  of  the  country,  as  his  biographer  notes,  that  he  was 
obliged  to  seek  a  German  text-book  in  one  place,  a  dictionary 
in  another,  and  a  grammar  in  a  third,  —  the  last  two  very  in- 
different of  their  kind.  These  preliminary  studies  were  carried 
on  in  agreeable  company.  Every  Saturday  evening  he  was  the 
host  of  gay  little  gatherings  in  his  study  at  his  father's  house, 
composed  of  a  rare  set  of  ambitious  young  fellows  —  among 
them  the  brothers  Everett,  Alexander  and  Edward.  At  these 
'  Saturday  evenings '  the  company  devoted  two  hours  zealously 
to  reading  and  writing  Latin,  and  finished  off  with  a  cheerful 
supper.  He  finally  sailed  in  the  spring  of  1815,  and  on  the 
same  packet  with  him  was  Edward  Everett,  then  a  young  man 
of  twenty -one,  also  making  his  first  journey  for  foreign  culture. 
"  Ticknor  spent  four  years  in  Europe,  years  of  rare  experi- 
ence for  those  days.  He  became  proficient  in  the  romantic 
dialects  of  the  Provencal  speech.  He  made  the  acquaintance 
of  eminent  scholars  and  literary  men.  He  visited  Sir  Walter 
Scott,  who  afterward  wrote  of  him  as  '  a  wondrous  fellow  for 
romantic  lore,  and  antiquarian  research/  He  formed  a  friend- 


A   DAY  ABOUT  BOSTON.  227 

ship  with  Robert  Southey,  which  ripened  into  intimate  rela- 
tions in  correspondence  after  his  return  home.  While  yet 
abroad,  he  was  appointed  to  a  new  professorship  of  French 
and  Spanish  Languages  and  Belles-Lettres  in  Harvard  College. 
In  1819  he  assumed  this  chair,  which  he  held  for  fifteen  years. 
He  was  married  in  1821,  to  Anna  Eliot.  She  was  a  daughter 
of  Samuel  Eliot,  a  wealthy  Boston  merchant  (founder,  by  the 
way,  of  the  Harvard  chair  of  Greek  literature)  who  had  died 
the  previous  year.  Thereafter,  with  his  wife's  inheritance,  and 
the  competence  which  he  received  from  his  own  father,  who 
died  some  months  before  Mr.  Eliot,  he  was  enabled  to  live  at 
ease  and  pursue  his  favorite  studies  to  the  end  of  his  days. 

"  Ticknor's  history  of  Spanish  literature  was  begun  in 
1840,  after  his  return  from  a  second  sojourn  in  Europe. 
During  this  visit  he  began  collecting  his  library  of  Spanish 
literature,  which,  with  accessions  subsequently  made,  became  a 
wonderful  collection.  Although  his  history  was  founded  upon 
his  studies  of  the  previous  twenty  years,  the  results  of  which 
had  been  largely  embodied  in  his  Harvard  lectures,  everything 
written  in  the  lecture  form  was  cast  aside  and  the  work  begun 
anew.-  The  sumptuous  volumes  made  their  first  appearance 
nine  years  later,  in  1849.  Before  the  manuscript  was  put  into 
type  it  was  submitted  to  his  fellow  historian,  Prescott,  for 
revision  and  correction,  as  Prescott  had  submitted  his  own 
histories  in  the  manuscript  to  Ticknor.  Prescott  heartily 
commended  the  work,  and  this  commendation  was  echoed  by 
leading  reviewers  when  the  volumes  appeared.  They  were 
received  at  home  and  abroad  as  a  scholar's  work.  An  English 
edition  was  published  in  London  by  Murray  simultaneously 
with  the  appearance  of  the  work  here ;  and  subsequently 
Spanish  and  German  translations  were  published.  Still 
Ticknor  went  on  accumulating  material,  revising,  amending, 
and  elaborating  the  original  work  up  to  the  close  of  his  life  ; 
and  the  results  appeared  in  the  edition  of  1863,  <  corrected  and 
enlarged,'  published  a  year  after  his  death. 


228  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

"What  became  of  his  fine  library?  His  Spanish  and 
Portuguese  books  were  given  to  the  Boston  Public  Library,  of 
which  he  was  one  of  the  chief  founders.  They  constitute  one 
of  the  several  valuable  special  libraries  of  that  excellent  insti- 
tution. And  in  the  Barton-Ticknor  Room  of  the  building  is 
Mr.  Ticknor's  great  writing-table,  which  was  the  center-piece 
of  his  <  stately  library/ 

"  Of  Ticknor's  other  literary  production,  the  most  impor- 
tant and  the  most  human  was  his  (  Life  of  Prescott,'  written 
in  his  old  age,  —  between  his  sixty-eighth  and  seventy-first 
years.  This  was  preeminently  a  tribute  to  a  treasured  friend, 
with  whom  he  had  been  intimate  from  the  time  when  they 
were  pupils  of  John  Sylvester  John  Gardiner." 

We  naturally  turned  next  toward  the  "  Prescott  house," 
only  a  short  walk  off  down  the  westerly  slope  of  Beacon 
Street.  Before  leaving  Park  Street,  however,  I  pointed  out  at 
No.  4,  now  the  publishing-house  of  Hough  ton,  Mifflin  &  Co., 
the  old  Quincy  mansion,  which  was  the  winter  home  of  the 
elder  Josiah  Quincy  (born  1772  —  died  1864),  —  president  of 
Harvard  College  from  1829  to  1845,  and  its  historian, — 
through  the  last  seven  years  of  his  long  and  useful  life,  which 
closed  in  his  ninety-second  year.  Also,  in  No.  2,  we  saw  the 
last  Boston  home  of  John  Lothrop  Motley  (born  1814  —  died 
1877),  the  historian,  which  he  occupied  in  1868-1869,  prior  to 
his  appointment  as  Minister  to  England. 

Our  way  down  Beacon  Street,  along  the  line  of  favored 
dwellings,  —  favored  by  their  beautiful  setting,  —  of  the  older 
and  statelier  Boston  type,  carried  us  by  other  landmarks  in 
which  Percy  displayed  the  keenest  interest.  He  was  shown 
the  house  in  which  Wendell  Phillips  (born  1811  — died  1884) 
was  born,  still  standing  on  the  lower  corner  of  Beacon  and 
Walnut  Streets ;  while  up  Walnut  Street,  by  the  Chestnut- 
Street  opening,  he  saw  Motley's  boyhood  home.  As  he  gazed 
at  these  spots,  I  whipped  out  my  note-book,  and  gave  him 
this  picture  of  a  scene  in  the  garret  of  the  Motley  home, 


A   DAY  ABOUT  BOSTON. 


229 


taken  from  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes's  genial   memoir  of  the 
historian :  — 

44  Mr.  Motley's  home  was  a  very  hospitable  one,  and  Lothrop  and  two 
of  his  young  companions  were  allowed  to  carry  out  their  schemes  of 
amusement  in  the  garden  and  the  garret.  If  one  with  a  prescient  glance 
could  have  looked  into  that  garret  on  some  Saturday  afternon  while  our 
century  was  not  far  advanced  in  its  second  score  of  years,  he  might  have 
found  three  boys  in  cloaks 
and  doublets  and  plumed 
hats,  heroes  and  bandits, 
enacting  more  or  less  im- 
promptu melodramas.  In 
one  of  the  boys  he  would 
have  seen  the  embryo 
dramatist  of  a  nation's 
life  history,  John  Lothrop 
Motley  ;  in  the  second,  a 
famous  talker  and  wit, 
who  has  spilled  more  good 
things  on  the  wasteful 
air  in  conversation  than 
would  carry  a  diner-out 
through  half  a  dozen  Lon- 
don seasons,  and  waked 
up  somewhat  after  the 
usual  flowering  time  of 
authorship  to  find  himself 
a  very  agreeable  and  cor- 
dially welcomed  writer, 
—  Thomas  Gold  Apple- 
ton.  In  the  third  he  would 
have  recognized  a  cham- 
pion of  liberty  known 
wherever  that  word  is 
spoken,  an  orator  whom  to  hear  is  to  revive  all  the  traditions  of  the  grace, 
the  address,  the  commanding  sway  of  the  silver-tongued  eloquence  of 
the  most  renowned  speakers,  Wendell  Phillips." 

"  These  three  neighborly  boys,"  I  chatted  "  continued  their 
close  intimacy  through  school  and  college  days,  and  their 
friendship  was  lifelong.  They  were  classmates  at  Harvard, 


From  Harper's  Catalogue  by  permission, 
"irper  i  Ki 


Harper  &  Brother 
JOHN     LOTHROP     MOTLEY 


pyright,  1899,  by 


230  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

Motley  and  Appleton  being  room-mates.  They  were  all  of 
strong  New  England  blood.  Phillips  was  of  the  family  who 
founded  the  Andover  Academy.  His  father,  John  Phillips, 
was  long  town  advocate  and  public  prosecutor  of  Boston,  and 
subsequently  the  first  mayor,  when  the  town  became  a  city  in 
1822.  Appleton's  father  was  the  liberal-minded  merchant, 
Nathan  Appleton,  one  of  the  fathers  of  New  England  manu- 
factures. Motley's  father,  Thomas  Motley,  also  was  a  mer- 
chant, one  of  that  fine  old  school  of  commercial  men  *  in  whom 
with  the  sagacity  of  the  merchant  was  combined  the  manners 
and  the  sentiments  of  the  accomplished  and  genial  gentleman/ 
as  Edwin  P.  Whipple  has  so  well  phrased  it. 

"  Phillips's  contribution  to  our  literature  was  altogether  that 
of  the  orator  and  the  platform  agitator ;  yet  he  was  an  accom- 
plished scholar  and  a  master  of  diction.  Choicest  of  his  more 
literary  efforts  was  his  lecture  on  <  The  Lost  Arts/  a  classic, 
delivered  hundreds  of  times,  and  each  time  with  added  graces. 
Another,  of  rare  felicity  mixed  with  that  biting  satire  which 
marked  his  every  public  utterance,  was  his  Phi  Beta  Kappa 
address  on  'The  Scholar  in  a  Republic/  delivered  at  Cam- 
bridge, in  1881,  at  the  fullness  of  his  career.  In  his  young 
manhood,  at  the  threshold  of  a  promising  professional  life  in 
the  law  to  which  he  was  bred,  he  threw  himself  into  the  anti- 
slavery  struggle,  and  thenceforward  devoted  his  talents  and 
means  unreservedly  to  it.  Unlike  Garrison,  he  suffered  none 
of  the  hardships  of  poverty;  but  he  sacrificed,  almost  with  a 
jocund  air,  an  unquestioned  social  position  and  a  life  of 
aristocratic  ease  to  which  he  had  been  nurtured,  for  this  unpop- 
ular and  despised  cause.  His  home  was  always  in  Boston; 
after  his  marriage  in  a  house  of  his  own,  plain  within  as  well 
as  without,  in  that  old  Essex  Street  where  Ticknor  was  born, 
till  business  changes  in  the  quarter  drove  him  from  it  to  a 
plainer  house  in  a  soberer  street.  His  grave  is  in  the  old 
bury  ing-ground  of  Milton,  beyond  the  outskirts  of  the  city. 
There  he  lies  by  the  side  of  his  wife,  wfro,  though  a  life-long 


A    DAY  ABOUT  BOSTON.  £31 

invalid,    survived    him.     The  two    graves    are    marked    by    a 
boulder  thus  simply  inscribed,  in  accordance  with  his  wish, — 
showing  his  chivalrous  courtesy,  in  placing   the  wife's  name 
first: 

Ann  and  Wendell  Phillips, 

Died  April  24,  1886  —  February  2,  1884 

Aged  73  — Aged  73. 

"Thomas  Gold  Appleton's  (born  1812  — died  1884)  late 
literary  blossoms,  to  which  Holmes  alluded,  appear  in  several 
small  volumes  of  essays,  sketches  and  reminiscences  of  travel, 
and  verses.  Among  his  numerous  much-quoted  sayings  was 
that  mot,  f  Good  Americans  when  they  die  go  to  Paris.'  He 
was  a  brother-in-law  of  Longfellow,  and  one  of  the  closest 
friends  of  the  poet. 

"  Motley's  greatest  literary  work,  that  which  gave  him  his 
rank  among  the  first  historians  of  his  time,  was  done  abroad, 
where  he  lived  through  the  larger  part  of  his  career.  Only  his 
young  manhood  and  a  few  scattered  years  of  his  mature  life 
were  passed  in  Boston.  Yet  here  his  literary  career  began. 
His  earliest  effusions,  written  while  an  undergraduate  in  his 
teens,  found  place  in  the  college  journal,  and  in  N.  P.  Willis's 
slender  Boston  magazine.  His  efforts  at  novel  writing,  the 
results  of  which  were  depressing,  were  aLso  made  here.  The 
first  of  these  productions  '  Morton's  Hope,  or  the  Memoirs  of 
a  Provincial,'  failed,  although  its  critics  found  evidence  of 
uncommon  resources  of  mind  in  the  author,  and  also  of  scholar- 
ship. It  was  written  soon  after  his  marriage,  in  1837,  to 
beautiful  Mary  Benjamin.  She  was  one  of  the  two  engaging 
sisters  of  Park  Benjamin,  afterward  the  New  York  editor, 
poet,  and  lecturer,  who  was  then  living  here  in  Boston  and 
editing  Buckingham's  New  England  Magazine.  The  second 
novel,  '  Merrymount,  a  Romance  of  the  Massachusetts  Colony/ 
which  appeared  six  or  eight  years  later,  met  only  a  slightly 
better  fate. 


232  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

«'  Meanwhile,  however,  Motley  was  finding  his  field  in 
historical  composition ;  and  in  the  mid-forties  he  made  a  begin- 
ning in  his  Boston  study,  and  in  his  summer  house  at  Nahant, 
on  his  history  of  the  Dutch  Republic.  After  some  years  of 
work  he  saw  that  he  must  consult  authorities  which  were  only 
to  be  found  in  the  libraries  and  archives  of  Europe.  So  he 
cast  aside  all  that  he  had  done  here  and  began  afresh  there. 
After  ten  years'  labor  in  exhaustive  research  and  composition, 
'  The  Rise  of  the  Dutch  Republic/  the  first  work  of  the  series, 
was  completed,  and  he  went  up  to  London  with  the  bulky 
manuscript  in  search  of  a  publisher.  But  the  London  pub- 
lishers were  shy,  and  the  work  was  finally  ventured  only  at 
the  author's  expense.  Its  success  was  immediate.  It  brought 
him  at  once  into  the  *  full  blaze  of  a  great  reputation,'  and 
firmly  fixed  his  place  in  literature.  This  was  in  1857.  Four 
years  later  the  first  two  volumes  of  'The  History  of  the 
United  Netherlands '  appeared,  increasing  his  fame ;  and  in 
1868  the  concluding  volumes  of  the  Netherlands.  The  l  Life 
and  Death  of  John  of  Barneveld '  was  his  last  and  crowning 
work. 

"  You  know,  of  course,  of  Motley's  long  service  as  Ameri- 
can minister  to  Austria  through  our  Civil  War,  and  of  his 
short  career  during  the  first  year  of  President  Grant's  admin- 
istration, as  our  minister  to  England.  Yes,  there  was  some 
trouble  attending  the  last  mission ;  and  also  the  first  one.  He 
was  led  to  resign  the  Austrian  post  after  six  years'  service, 
through  the  course  of  President  Johnson's  administration 
toward  him,  resulting  from  a  political  slander ;  and  he  was 
recalled  from  the  English  mission  on  the  allegation  that  he 
had  been  guilty  of  diplomatic  indiscretions.  His  friends, 
however,  felt  satisfied  that  the  real  occasion  of  this  recall  was 
his  close  friendship  with  Senator  Sumner,  who  was  then  in 
controversy  with  the  administration.  Be  the  reasons  for  the 
treatment  of  him  in  either,  or  both  cases,  just  or  unjust,  it  is 
undeniable  that  his  representation  of  the  country  in  both  posi- 


A  DAY  ABOUT  BOSTON.  233 

tions  was  able,  faithful,  and  dignified,  and  that  it  reflected 
honorably  upon  our  government. 

"  Motley's  foreign  life  began  in  the  early  thirties,  as  a  stu- 
dent in  the  universities  of  Berlin  and  Gottingen.  At  the  latter 
he  had  as  a  fellow  student  Bismarck,  with  whom  he  became 
intimate.  The  two  lodged  together  shared  their  meals  and 
their  outdoor  exercises.  He  died  abroad,  and  was  buried  in 
Kensal  Green  Cemetery,  near  London,  by  the  side  of  his  wife, 
who  died  also  in  England,  three  years  before  him.  Both  his 
daughters  married  in  England,  the  eldest  becoming  Lady  Har- 
court. 

"  His  middle  name  of  Lothrop  ?  That  was  a  family  name, 
—  the  name  of  his  mother's  family,  one  of  the  earliest  in  New 
England,  from  which  sprang  learned  New  England  clergymen 
and  men  of  affairs.  His  mother  was  distinguished  for  the 
i  charm  of  her  serene  and  noble  presence.'  He,  too,  was  a  type 
of  manly  beauty.  In  his  youth  he  was  thought  to  resemble 
Byron,  e  though  handsomer,'  Wendell  Phillips  said." 

We  had  now  reached  the  Prescott  house,  No.  55,  near  the 
foot  of  the  Beacon-Street  slope.  This  was  most  satisfying  to 
Percy,  for  here  he  saw  a  landmark  but  slightly  changed  in  the 
years  since  it  acquired  distinction.  In  its  outward  aspect  it 
was  as  in  Prescott's  day.  A  double-swell  front  of  light-colored 
brick,  with  pillared  porch,  and  an  air  of  quiet  elegance,  it 
stood  out  among  its  fellows  rather  notably.  Within;  on  the 
entrance  floor,  was  originally  the  historian's  library-room, 
which  he  had  built  on  to  the  house,  crowded  to  the  ceiling  with 
rows  of  manuscript  copies  of  Spanish  State  papers,  and  richly 
bound  volumes,  some  of  them  of  incalculable  value.  Above 
this  room,  reached  from  it  through  a  secret  door  hidden  among 
the  books,  and  up  a  winding  staircase,  was  the  working  study, 
where  the  partially  blind  scholar,  —  rendered  so  by  an  accident 
at  college,  —  toiled  with  his  noctograph,  or  listened  to  his 
secretary's  reading  of  voluminous  notes  copied  from  the  auto- 
graphic despatches  of  the  conquerors  of  Mexico  aud  Peru. 


234 


LITEBAEYf  PILGRIM  A  GES. 


In  his  day  family  and  other  portraits  embellished  the 
library-room,  and  on  the  cornice  appeared  those  "crossed 
swords "  to  which  Thackeray  so  graciously  alludes  in  the 
opening  of  "  The  Virginians."  And  I  repeated  the  familiar 
passage : 

**  On  the  library -wall  of  one  of  the  most  famous  writers  of  America 
there  hang  two  crossed  swords,  which  his  relatives  wore  in  the  great  war 


HOME    OF    WILLIAM    H.    PRESCOTT. 

of  Independence.  The  one  sword  was  gallantly  drawn  in  the  service  of 
the  King,  the  other  was  the  weapon  of  a  brave  and  honored  republican 
soldier.  The  possessor  of  the  harmless  trophy  has  earned  for  himself  a 
name  alike  honored  in  his  ancestors'  country  and  in  his  own,  where  genius 
like  his  has  always  a  peaceful  welcome." 

They  were  the  weapons  borne  by  the  ancestors  of  Prescott 
and  his  wife  on  either  side  at  the  Battle  of  Bunker  Hill :  his 
grandfather,  Colonel  Prescott,  the  American  commander ;  and 


A   DAY  ABOUT  BOSTON.  235 

her  grandfather,  Captain  Linzee,  commander  of  the  Falcon, 
one  of  the  British  war-ships  in  the  engagement. 

"  I  should  have  liked  to  see  those  swords,"  Percy  mused. 

"You  may  see  them,  quite  as  Thackeray  saw  them,"  I 
replied  to  his  great  gratification.  And  I  told  how  they  are 
now  displayed,  crossed  just  as  Prescott  had  arranged  them,  on 
a  wall  in  the  library  of  the  Massachusetts  Historical  Society, 
in  another  part  of  the  city,  to  which  they  went  after  Prescott's 
death. 

Then  we  talked  of  the  remarkable  work  accomplished  in 
this  house,  remarkable  in  its  execution  as  in  its  substance, 
since  it  was  done,  as  was  all  that  the  historian  did,  under  the 
disadvantages  of  excessive  bodily  afflictions.  This  work  em- 
braced the  composition  of  his  "Conquest  of  Peru"  and  of  the 
three  volumes  of  "  Philip  the  Second  "  unfinished  at  his  death, 
— "  but  not  that  which  brought  him  his  first  fame,"  I  explained, 
observing  that  Percy  was  associating  this  house  with  all  of 
Prescott's  literary  achievements.  "  He  was  famous  when  he 
moved  here,  in  1845,  his  i  History  of  the  Reign  of  Ferdinand 
and  Isabella '  having  been  out  eight  years,  and  his  '  Conquest 
of  Mexico '  two  years.  The  '  Peru '  and  the  <  Philip  Second/ 
indeed,  added  lustre  to  his  reputation,  but  neither  caused  the 
literary  sensation  which  the  first  work  of  all  produced.  That 
sensation  was  occasioned  not  by  the  greater  excellence  of  the 
1  Ferdinand  and  Isabella/  but  by  the  publication  of  such  a 
work  from  such  a  source.  The  historian's  near  friend,  William 
H.  Gardiner,  —  son  of  his  old  rectory  preceptor,  Dr.  Gardiner, 
—  graphically  tells  the  tale : 

"  *  Mr.  Prescott  had  acquired  earlier  no  marked  reputation  as  an 
author.  As  a  mere  man  of  letters  his  substantial  merits  were  known  only 
by  a  few  intimate  friends ;  perhaps  not  fully  appreciated  by  them.  To 
the  public  he  was  little  known  in  any  way.  But  he  was  a  prodigious 
favorite  with  whatever  was  most  cultivated  in  the  society  of  Boston. 
Few  men  ever  had  so  many  warmly  attached  friends.  .  .  .  When,  there- 
fore, it  came  to  be  known  that  the  same  person  who  had  so  attracted  by 
an  extraordinary  combination  of  charming  personal  qualities  was  about  to 


236  L1TEEAEY  PILGRIMAGES. 

publish  a  book,  —  and  it  was  known  only  a  very  short  time  before  the 
book  itself  appeared,  —  the  fact  excited  the  greatest  surprise,  curiosity, 
and  interest.  The  day  of  its  appearance  was  looked  forward  to  and 
talked  of.  It  came,  and  there  was  a  perfect  rush  to  get  copies.  A  con- 
vivial friend,  for  instance,  who  was  far  from  being  a  man  of  letters,  — 
indeed,  a  person  who  rarely  read  a  book,  —  got  up  early  in  the  morning 
and  went  to  wait  for  the  opening  of  the  publisher's  shop,  so  as  to  secure 
the  first  copy.  -It  came  out  at  Christmas  [1837],  and  was  at  once  adopted 
as  the  fashionable  Christmas  and  New  Year's  present  of  the  season.  No 
one  read  it  without  surprise  and  delight.  .  .  .  Love  of  the  author  gave 
the  first  impetus.  That  given,  the  extraordinary  merits  of  the  work  did 
all  the  rest.' 

"  In  the  market  at  large  the  sale  of  the  book  was  astonish- 
ingly rapid.  In  a  few  months  more  copies  were  sold  than  the 
publisher's  contract  assumed  could  be  disposed  of  in  five  years. 
'  A  success  so  brilliant  had  never  before  been  reached  in  so 
short  a  time  by  any  book  of  equal  size  and  gravity  on  this  side 
of  the  Atlantic/  says  Ticknor.  It  brought  the  author  before 
the  public,  as  Webster  grandiloquently  expressed  it,  like  i  a 
comet  which  had  suddenly  blazed  out  upon  the  world  in  full 
splendor.'  Its  reception  by  the  critics  on  both  sides  of  the 
ocean  was  hardly  less  marked  than  were  the  popular  sales. 

"  This  Beacon-Street  house  was  identified  with  the  last 
fourteen  years  of  the  historian's  life.  His  work  here  was  pur- 
sued through  difficulties  incident  to  his  infirmities  with  the 
same  thoroughness,  patience,  and  persistency  that  characterized 
his  earlier  productions.  His  mode  of  writing  was  thus  de- 
scribed by  one  of  his  secretaries,  in  a  letter  to  Ticknor :  — 

"  '  When  he  had  decided  upon  the  subjects  to  be  discussed,  or  events 
to  be  related  in  a  particular  chapter,  he  carefully  read  all  that  portion  of 
his  authorities,  in  print  and  manuscript,  bearing  upon  [them],  .  .  .  tak- 
ing copious  notes  of  each  authority  as  he  read,  and  marking  the  volume 
and  page  of  each  statement  for  future  reference.  These  notes  I  copied 
in  a  large,  legible  hand,  so  that,  at  times,  he  could  read  them,  though 
more  frequently  I  read  them  aloud  to  him,  until  he  had  impressed  them 
completely  on  his  memory.  After  this  had  been  accomplished  he  would 
occupy  several  days  in  silently  digesting  this  mental  provender,  balancing 


A  DAY  ABOUT  BOSTON.  237 

the  conflicting  testimony  of  authorities,  arranging  the  details  of  his  narra- 
tive, selecting  his  ornaments,  rounding  his  periods,  and  moulding  the 
whole  chapter  in  his  mind,  as  an  orator  might  prepare  his  speech.  Many 
of  his  best  battle-scenes,  he  told  me,  he  had  composed  while  on  horse- 
back [when  taking  his  exercise].  .  .  .  When  he  had  fully  prepared  his 
chapter  in  mind,  he  began  to  dash  it  off  with  rapidity  by  the  use  of  his 
writing-case.  .  .  .  He  was  as  cautious  in  correcting  as  he  was  rapid  in 
writing.  Each  word  and  sentence  was  carefully  weighed  and  subjected  to 
the  closest  analysis.  If  found  wanting  in  strength  or  beauty,  it  was 
changed  and  turned  till  the  exact  expression  required  was  found,  when  he 
dictated  the  correction  which  was  made  by  me  on  his  manuscript.  .  .  . 
After  the  chapter  had  been  thus  carefully  corrected  I  copied  it  in  a  large, 
heavy,  pike-staff  hand,  .  .  .  and  Mr.  Prescott  then  re-perused  and  re- 
corrected  it.  He  then  read  again  my  copy  of  the  original  notes  that  he 
had  taken  from  the  authorities  on  which  he  founded  his  chapter,  and  from 
them  prepared  the  remarks,  quotations,  and  references  found  in  his  foot- 
notes. These  I  copied,  .  .  .  and  my  copy  was  again  and  again  carefully 
scrutinized  and  corrected  by  him.' 

"  And  then,"  I  added,  "  when  the  matter  was  in  type,  and 
before  the  plates  were  made,  it  was  submitted  to  experts  for 
final  inspection  and  correction." 

Percy  thought  this  the  method  of  the  true  workman,  and 
the  description  of  it  heightened  his  respect  for  the  historian. 
Then  he  inquired  as  to  that  accident  which  caused  the  partial 
blindness  of  Prescott ;  and  I  related  the  story  as  follows,  bas- 
ing my  account  on  the  narration  in  Ticknor's  Life. 

"It  was  a  singular  accident.  It  happened  in  his  junior 
year  at  Harvard,  when  he  was  sixteen.  One  day  in  the  Com- 
mons Hall  after  dinner,  when  the  college  officers  had  left  the 
tables,  some  of  the  undergraduates  indulged  in  rough  frolick- 
ing. Prescott  had  no  part  in  the  play,  but  hearing  a  disturb- 
ance behind  him  as  he  was  passing  out  of  the  hall,  he  turned 
his  head  quickly  and  received  a  blow  full  in  the  open  eye  from 
a  crust  of  bread,  flung  at  random  by  one  of  the  frolickers.  He 
fell  to  the  floor,  and  comrades  immediately  brought  him  to 
his  father's  house  here  in  Boston.  He  recovered  in  time  suf- 
ficiently to  return  to  Cambridge  and  finish  his  course.  But  the 


238 


LITER  A  R  Y  PIL  GRIM  A  OES. 


eyesight  was  gone.  About  a  year  and  a  half  afterward  the 
other  eye  became  inflamed,  and  was  attacked  with  acute  rheu- 
matism ;  and  this  disease  persecuted  him  through  the  remainder 

of  his  life.  Twice  at 
intervals  after  the  first 
attack  it  recurred  in  the 
remaining  eye,  accom- 
panied each  time  with 
total  blindness. 

"Fortunately  the 
sightless  eye  did  not  mar 
Prescott's  face ;  nor  to 
common  observation  was 
any  difference  between 
it  and  the  remaining  eye 
perceptible.  In  personal 
appearance  and  carriage 
he  was  strikingly  hand- 
some. Ticknor  sketches 
him  as  'tall,  well  formed, 
manly  in  his  bearing,  yet 
gentle,  with  light  hair 
that  was  hardly  changed 
or  diminished  by  years, 
a  clear  complexion  and  a 
ruddy  flush  on  his  cheek 
that  kept  for  him  to  the 
last  an  appearance  of 
comparative  youth,  but, 
above  all,  with  a  smile  that  was  the  most  absolutely  conta- 
gious '  his  friend  ever  looked  upon.  No  figure  in  the  city's 
streets  attracted  such  < regard  and  good  will  from  so  many'  as 
his.  He  had  many  arid  strong  friendships  with  men  of  letters 
abroad  as  in  his  own  country.  He  died  at  sixty-two  from 
apoplexy,  the  fatal  attack  coming  upon  him  in  his  library." 


WILLIAM    H.    PRESCOTT. 


A   DAY  ABOUT  BOSTON.  239 

Of  Prescott's  other  Boston  homes,  about  which  Percy  nat- 
urally inquired,  I  could  only  repeat  the  descriptions  which 
others  have  given,  for  all  traces  of  them  were  long  gone.  So 
I  told  of  the  immediate  predecessor  of  this  home  in  which  he 
lived  for  twenty  years  and  more,  where  his  literary  work  be- 
gan, and  where  fame  found  him.  That  was  the  house  of  his 
father,  Judge  Prescott,  pictured  as  a  fine  old  mansion  behind 
great  trees.  It  stood  on  Bedford  Street,  easterly  of  the  Com- 
mon, in  what  is  now  a  wholesale  business  quarter,  thick  with 
business  blocks.  It  had  other  associations  which  rendered  it 
especially  dear  to  Prescott,  for  here  he  brought  his  bride,  Susan 
Amory,  whom  he  married  on  his  twenty-fourth  birthday.  And 
in  the  self-same  house,  twenty-five  years  before,  his  bride's 
mother,  the  daughter  of  that  British  sailor  at  Bunker  Hill,  had 
been  married.  The  {t  crossed  swords  "  were  here  first  displayed 
in  the  historian's  study  above  his  books. 

Ketracing  our  steps  a  few  paces,  we  took  the  short  cross 
street  to  Chestnut  Street,  running  parallel  with  Beacon  Street, 
where  a  little  way  down  on  the  southerly  side  we  came  to  the 
last  Boston  home  of  that  other  historian,  whom  John  Fiske 
has  pronounced  "  the  most  deeply  and  peculiarly  American  of 
all  American  historians,  yet,  at  the  same  time,  the  broadest 
and  most  cosmopolitan,"  -  -  Francis  Parkman  (born  1823  —  died 
1893).  This  house  was  No.  50,  backing  nearly  opposite  the 
rear  of  the  Prescott  house,  which  suggested  to  Percy  a  fitting 
neighborliness  of  the  two  historians.  But,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
Prescott  had  been  dead  five  years  when  Parkman  moved  here. 
Parkman  had,  however,  been  living  some  years  in  this  quarter, 
—  on  Walnut  Street,  where  the  boy  Motley  had  lived ;  and  he 
and  Prescott  had  been  near  friends. 

I  pointed  out,  also,  the  similarity  between  their  careers. 
Both  pursued  their  historical  investigations  in  unworn  fields. 
Both  worked  with  heroic  fortitude  and  perseverance  under  the 
hard  conditions  of  physical  infirmities.  Both  were  remarkably 
thorough  in  their  preparation  for  the  literary  execution  of  their 


240  .  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

histories,  and  exhaustive  in  their  preliminary  researches.  Both 
suffered  impaired  sight,  and  were  obliged  to  depend  much  upon 
others'  eyes  for  their  reading  and  in  the  composition  of  their 
works. 

This  No.  50  Chestnut  Street  had  for  us  especial  attractions, 
since  it  was  Parkman's  town  house  during  the  last  twenty-nine 
years  of  his  life,  when  appeared  all  of  the  seven  volumes  con- 


HOME    OF-    FRANCIS     PARKMAN. 


stituting  his  "  France  and  England  in  North  America,'7  —  the 
great  work  which  he  set  out  to  accomplish  before  he  left  college. 
They  came  in  this  order  :  Part  I.,  "  The  Pioneers  of  France  in  the 
New  World,"  published  in  1861,  when  he  had  lived  here  a  year  ; 
Part  II.,  "  The  Jesuits,"  in  1867 ,  Part  III.,  "  The  Discovery  of 
the  Great  West,"  in  1869 ;  Part  IV.,  « The  Old  Kegime,"  in 
1874;  Part  V.,  « Count  Frontenac,"  in  1877;  Part  VII.,  "Mont- 
calm  and  Wolfe,"  in  1884 ;  and  Part  VI.,  «  A  Half  Century  of 
Conflict,"  in  1892.  The  break  in  chronological  sequence  by 


A   DAY  ABOUT  BOSTON.  241 

the  publication  of  Part  VII.  before  Part  VI.  was  due  to  Park- 
man's  wish  to  make  sure  of  the  final  chapters,  the  climax  of  the 
story,  and  his  fear  that  he  might  not  live  to  complete  it.  Hap- 
pily, however,  this  fear  was  not  realized.  The  completing 
link  —  Part  VI.  —  was  finished  some  months  before  his  death, 
which  occurred  shortly  after  his  seventieth  birthday. 

Of  the  interior  of  this  house  in  Parkman's  day,  and  particu- 
larly of  the  historian's  study,  his  biographer,  Charles  Haight 
Jfarnum,  has  given  a  charming  sketch  (and  I  read  from  my  note- 
book) : 

**....  A  twilight  house  of  subdued  colors,  simply  furnished  with 
heirlooms,  and  full  of  the  peace  and  comfort  derived  from  good  house- 
keeping and  a  quiet  spirit.  Daring  the  last  years  of  his  life,  when  his 
lameness  was  very  troublesome,  he  mounted  to  his  study  on  the  third 
floor  by  an  elevator  which  he  could  operate  by  the  power  of  his  own  arms. 
The  room  had  a  subdued  light  from  two  windows  facing  the  north.  An 
open  stove  with  a  soft-coal  fire  cast  a  glow  into  the  shadows ;  two  of  the 
walls  were  covered  with  bookshelves,  the  others  with  engraved  portraits  of 
historic  persons.  On  the  mantel  stood  some  of  Barye's  statuettes  of  ani- 
mals, and  on  the  wall  were  a  few  Indian  relics  he  had  brought  from 
the  Oregon  Trail.  ...  It  was  simply  a  writer's  workshop,  without  any 
luxurious  or  ornamental  appointment.  He  did  not  approve  of  large  col- 
lections of  books  in  private  houses,  because  of  the  trouble  they  give,  and 
because  such  sources  of  information  should  be  accessible  to  students  in 
public  libraries.  His  collection  consisted  of  about  twenty-five  hundred 
volumes,  which  he  bequeathed  to  Harvard  College  ;  some  of  these  were  in- 
herited from  his  father.  The  chief  feature  of  his  library  was  his  collection 
of  manuscripts,  which  far  outweighed  in  value  all  the  other  works.  Next 
in  importance  was  a  collection  of  eighty-nine  maps,  and  about  fifteen 
hundred  works  relating  to  his  historic  labors.  All  these  are  now  kept 
together  in  Harvard  College  library  as  the  '  Parkman  Collection.'  " 

Parkman's  methods  of  work  in  his  study  are  described  by 
the  same  competent  hand,  and  I  gave  Percy  this  condensation 
of  the  detailed  statement,  which  he  contrasted  with  that  of 
Prescott's  methods : 

"In  beginning  a  volume  he  had  all  the  documents  concerning  it  read 
to  him,  the  first  time  for  the  chief  features  of  the  subject.  While  this 


242  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

reading  was  in  progress  he  made,  now  and  then,  a  short  note,  or  walked 
over  from  his  shady  corner  to  where  the  reader  sat  in  the  light,  to  mark  a 
passage  for  future  reference.  .  .  .  He  could  not  listen  to  this  reading  for 
more  than  an  hour  or  two  per  day  in  even  his  best  health,  and  with  the 
help  of  frequent  rests,  requiring  in  the  reader  a  quiet  manner,  a  low  voice, 
and  a  slow  pace.  .  .  .  Then  came  a  second  reading,  during  which  he 
noted  accessory  matters  and  details  of  the  story  ;  and  sometimes  a  third 
examination  was  needed  of  portions  of  his  great  mass  of  documents.  By 
this  slow  method  he  acquired  perfect  possession  of  the  materials  needed 
for  a  volume.  He  then  set  to  work  at  composition,  always  finishing  one 
volume  before  touching  another.  .  .  .  "When  it  came  to  writing  or  dictat- 
ing the  book,  he  had  each  day's  production  already  arranged,  probably 
some  of  it  composed  and  memorized.  He  dictated  at  a  moderate  pace  — 
sometimes  holding  a  few  notes  in  his  hand  —  without  hesitation  and  with 
a  degree  of  finish  seldom  requiring  any  correction.  At  the  close  of  the 
morning  he  would  listen  to  what  had  been  written  down,  and  make  neces- 
sary changes.  During  the  day  he  would  look  over  the  composition,  for  he 
never  failed  to  verify  his  citations  and  authorities  himself,  or  to  paste  with 
his  own  hand  his  notes  on  the  bottom  of  the  pages.  ...  As  the  sensitive- 
ness of  his  eyes  often  made  it  impossible  for  him  to  look  at  paper  while 
writing,  he  caused  to  be  constructed  what  he  called  his  '  gridiron '  [a 
wooden  frame  of  the  size  and  shape  of  a  sheet  of  letter  paper,  with  stout 
wires  fixed  horizontally  across  it,  half  an  inch  apart,  and  a  movable  back 
of  thick  pasteboard  fitted  behind  them  :  the  paper  for  writing  was  placed 
between  the  pasteboard  and  the  wires,  guided  by  which,  and  using  a  black 
lead  crayon,  he  could  write  with  closed  eyes].  During  the  last  few  years 
of  his  life  his  eyes  allowed  him  to  write  out  quite  freely  for  short  periods 
of  time.  Thus  he  was  able  to  write  out  by  himself,  with  pencil  on  orange- 
colored  paper,  the  greater  part  of  his  '  Half  Century  '  and  '  Montcalm  and 
Wolfe.' " 

Parkman's  "birthplace,  I  remarked  in  passing,  was  also  in 
this  old  West  End  region,  within  perhaps  fifteen  minutes  walk 
of  this  Chestnut-Street  house.  The  house  is  still  standing,  on 
Allston  Street,  —  named  for  the  artist  Washington  Allston,— 
on  the  northerly  slope  of  the  hill.  Percy  straightway  wished 
to  be  led  to  it,  but  I  checked  his  ardor,  since  it  was  out  of  our 
present  route.  Nor  was  it  much  of  a  landmark,  I  added,  for 
the  Parkmans  lived  there  only  a  few  years  after  Parkman's 
birth.  However,  it  is  well  preserved  and  not  unattractive, 


A  DAY  ABOUT   BOSTON.  243 

and  is  worth  at  least  a  glance,  although  in  a  neighborhood 
long  past  the  "  genteel "  period.  "A  finer  sight,"  I  said, 
"  would  have  been  the  house  in  the  same  neighborhood  where 
much  of  Parkman's  youth  was  spent.  That  was  an  ample  and 
stately  mansion,  built  by  Samuel  Parkman,  his  paternal  grand- 
father, which,  with  its  deep  front  yard  and  rear  terraced  gar- 
den, once  embellished  the  now  shabby  corner  of  Bowdoin  Square 
and  Chardon  Street.  It  disappeared  in  the  early  sixties,  after 
its  degradation  to  unlovely  trade  uses.  It  was  the  fortune  of 
this  grandfather,  by  the  way,  '  patiently  acquired  in  the  wise 
fashion  of  those  days/  as  Lowell  has  written,  which  '  would 
have  secured  for  his  grandson  a  life  of  lettered  ease  had  he  not 
made  the  nobler  choice  of  spending  it  in  strenuous  literary 
labor.'  " 

This  remark  led  to  talk  of  Parkman's  lineage,  and  I  ob- 
served :  "  He  was  strong  in  other  ancestors.  His  paternal 
great-grandfather,  Ebenezer  Parkman,  grandson  of  the  first 
Parkman  in  the  colony  (he  was  Elias,  settled  in  Dorchester, 
now  part  of  Boston,  in  1633),  was  the  first  minister  of  the 
Massachusetts  town  of  Westborough  and  a  man  of  note.  He 
held  this  charge  for  fifty-eight  years,  and  during  all  that  period 
kept  chronicles  of  his  time,  as  well  as  a  diary,  marked  by  quaint 
humor.  One  of  his  entries  was  on  the  death  of  his  slave 
'  Marco ' :  '  Dark  as  it  has  been  with  us,  it  became  much  darker 
about  the  sun-setting :  the  sun  of  Marco's  life  Sat.'  His  third 
son  was  *  the  boy  of  thirteen  who  at  Ticonderoga,  in  1758,  car- 
ried a  musket  in  a  Massachusetts  regiment,  and  kept  in  his 
knapsack  a  dingy  little  notebook  in  which  he  jotted  down  what 
passed  each  day,'  as  Parkman  mentions  in  his  '  Montcalm  and 
Wolfe.'  Another  son  served  in  the  Revolution. 

"  The  sixth  son  was  Parkman's  grandfather.  Samuel  Park- 
man came  to  Boston  a  poor  boy  to  make  his  fortune ;  and  he 
made  it,  becoming  one  of  the  richest  men  of  the  town.  His 
son,  the  historian's  father,  was  the  Rev.  Francis  Parkman,  min- 
ister for  thirty-six  years,  till  his  death  in  1849,  of  the  New 


244 


LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 


North  Church  of  Boston.  Of  this  church  Parkman's  great- 
great-grandfather  —  William,  the  father  of  the  Rev.  Ebenezer 
—  was  one  of  the  original  members,  in  1712,  and  afterward  a 
ruling  elder ;  and  Samuel  Parkman  was  deacon  there  for 
twenty-three  years.  The  old  meeting-house  is  yet  standing  in 
the  North  End,  transformed  into  a  Catholic  church. 

"  In  the  maternal  line  Parkman  traced  back  to  the  famous 
Rev.  John  Cotton,  being  in  direct  lineage  from  Cotton's  son, 
the  Kev.  Rowland  Cotton  of  Plymouth.  His  maternal  grand- 
father was  the  Rev. 
Edward  Brooks,  of 
the  distinguished  old 
Medford  family  of 
that  name,  who  on  the 
nineteenth  of  April, 
1775,  ( went  over  to 
Lexington  on  horse- 
back with  his  gun  on 
his  shoulder,  and  in 
his  full-bottomed  wig.? 
"  Parkman  was  a 
Bostonian  of  Bostoni- 
ans,  for  his  father  and 
his  great-grandfather 
were  born  here,  and 
his  grandfather's  ac- 
tive life  was  identified 
FRANCIS  PARKMAN.  with  the  town.  He 

was  bred  for  the  law,  and  faithfully  took  the  Harvard  Law 
School  course,  after  his  graduation  from  the  college  in  1844,  to 
please  his  father ;  but  he  never  practiced.  He  began  in  boy- 
hood to  prepare  for  the  work  of  his  life,  unconsciously  at  the 
start.  While  in  college  his  vacations  were  spent  in  extended 
expeditions  into  regions  of  which  afterward  he  wrote.  On  one 
of  these  expeditions  he  followed  the  trail  of  Rogers  the  Ranger 


A   DAY  ABOUT  BOSTON.  245 

in  his  retreat  from  Lake  Memphremagog  to  the  Connecticut 
River  in  1759,  as  he  mentions  in  a  note  in  his  <  Montcalm  and 
Wolfe.'  On  another  he  journeyed  to  the  mouth  of  the  Magal- 
loway  River  into  a  region  hitherto  untrodden  save  by  the  foot 
of  the  hunter.  In  his  senior  year  he  went  abroad,  primarily 
for  his  health,  but  took  the  opportunity  to  spend  several  days 
in  a  ( retreat J  of  Passionate  Fathers  in  Rome,  thus  gaining  a 
view  of  clerical  machinery  which  helped  him  later  in  portray- 
ing some  of  the  actions  of  his  histories. 

"  Two  years  after  graduation  he  made  a  remarkable  expe- 
dition to  the  Rocky  Mountains,  and  spent  several  weeks  in  a 
village  of  the  Dakota  or  Sioux  tribe,  then  thorough  savages, 
living  as  one  of  the  family  in  the  lodge  of  the  principal  chief. 
He  took  part  in  an  excursion  with  his  Indian  friends  beyond 
the  Black  Hills  to  hunt  the  buffalo  and  cut  lodge-poles.  On 
this  western  journey  he  also  became  familiar  with  the  life  of 
the  trapper,  the  hunter,  and  the  Canadian  voyageur.  The 
knowledge  thus  gained  enabled  him  in  his  books  to  picture  the 
Indian  as  a  living  thing,  and  to  infuse,  actuality  into  his  stories 
of  border  warfare. 

"  But  it  was  acquired  through  exposure  and  hardships,  at 
the  expense  of  his  health,  impaired  earlier  by  over-exertion  in 
the  college  gymnasium.  Then  followed  the  increasing  weak- 
ness of  his  eyes,  first  injured  in  studying  by  candle-light  in  the 
early  mornings  while  at  the  Law  School,  when,  in  addition  to 
his  legal  studies,  he  pursued  general  history,  Indian  history 
and  ethnology,  and  models  of  English  style,  having  secretly 
in  view  his  historical  writings.  Upon  his  return  from  the 
West  his  health  was  so  shattered  that  he  was  obliged  to  go  to 
a  water-cure  establishment  in  Brattleborough,  Vermont ;  and 
there  he  dictated  a  record  of  the  expedition  to  his  companion 
on  it,  his  cousin  Quincy  A.  Shaw. 

"  This  was  his  '  The  Oregon  trail ;  or,  A  Summer  Journey 
Out  of  Bounds.'  It  was  published  first  as  a  serial  in  the 
Knickerbocker  Magazine,  in  1847.  It  appeared  in  book  form 


246  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

two  years  later,  and  in  course  of  time  took  its  place  as  one  of 
the  most  popular  stories  of  travel.  Meanwhile,  in  1848,  he 
began  his  first  historical  work,  the  '  History  of  the  Conspiracy 
of  Pontiac/  and  through  much  suffering  managed  to  complete 
it  two  and  a  half  years  later.  Its  publication  in  1851  first 
gave  him  rank  as  a  historian. 

"  In  1856  Parkman  published  his  first  and  only  work  of 
fiction.  This  was  l  Vassal  Morton,'  which,  like  Motley's  first 
novel,  fell  flat.  For  the  next  half  dozen  or  more  years  his 
physical  condition  made  literary  work  impossible.  Accordingly 
he  devoted  himself  to  horticulture  at  the  rural  country  seat 
which  he  had  established  in  1854  beside  Jamaica  Pond,  then 
on  the  outskirts  of  the  city.  This  avocation  was  pursued  with 
such  ardor  and  skill  that  he  introduced  to  the  country  many 
attractive  plants,  among  them  new  varieties  of  the  lily  and  the 
poppy.  Subsequently  he  wrote  one  of  the  most  useful  books 
on  the  rose  and  its  cultivation.  His  success  in  this  field  also 
led  to  his  appointment  to  the  professorship  of  horticulture  in 
Harvard  University. 

"  Although  it  was  fully  nine  years  after  the  appearance  of 
his  novel  when  he  was  enabled  to  publish  the  initial  volume 
of  his  histories,  the  purpose  to  do  honest  historical  writing 
was  never  off  his  mind.  In  spite  of  all  the  hindrances  inci- 
dent upon  ill  health,  his  material  was  gathered  with  pains- 
taking care.  Every  theme  which  he  treated  was  studied  on 
its  own  ground. 

"  In  Canada  the  histories  as  they  appeared  excited  enthu- 
siasm. McGill  University  of  Montreal  gave  him  his  LL.D. 
ten  years  before  Harvard  conferred  similar  honor  upon  him. 
In  Quebec  a  new  township  was  named  for  him,  and  his  por- 
trait was  placed  in  the  Library  of  Parliament  at  Ottawa." 


XV. 

OVER   BEACON   HILL. 

Home  of  Richard  H.  Dana,  the  poet.  —  Story  of  his  publication  of  Bry- 
ant's "  Thanatopsis." —  The  younger  Dana.  —  Arlo  Bates. — Henry 
Child  Merwin.  —  Cyrus  A.  Bartol.  —  Charles  Francis  Adams,  senior. 
—  T.  B.  Aldrich's  hill  homes.  —  William  Ellery  Charming  and  his 
work.  —  Margaret  Deland.  —  William  D.  Howells.  —  The  Alcotts. 
Pinckney  Street.  — Origin  of  "The  Hanging  of  the  Crane."  — Homes 
of  George  S.  Hillard,  Edwin  P.  Whipple,  Edwin  D.  Mead,  Louise 
Imogen  Guiuey.  —  The  poet  Parsons. 

CROSSING  to  the  other  side  of  Chestnut  Street  I  pointed  to 
the  house  numbered  43,  where  once  lived  the  poet  Richard 
Henry  Dana  (born  1787  —  died  1876). 

"Oh,  no,"  I  corrected  my  friend,  "he  was  not  the  Dana 
who  wrote  'Two  Years  Befor'e  the  Mast.?  So  your  father 
thinks  that  a  fine  book  ?  He  shows  his  appreciation  of  good 
work.  You're  mixing  the  Danas  up.  The  poet  Dana  was 
the  father  of  the  sailor-story  Dana.  The  poet  was  that  Dana 
who  wrote  the  '  Buccaneer '  away  back  in  the  twenties,  which, 
on  its  re-appearance  on  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic,  Chris- 
topher North  compared  favorably  with  « Old  Grimes '  of  Crabbe, 
the  '  Peter  Bell '  of  Wordsworth,  and  <  The  Ancient  Mariner ' 
of  Coleridge.  His  was  The  Idle  Man,  that  unique  little 
periodical,  also  of  the  twenties,  to  which  Bryant  and  other 
poetical  lights  of  that  day  contributed,  while  he  wrote  most  of 
the  prose.  It  started  in  1826  and  ran  through  only  six  num- 
bers, then  stopped  for  lack  of  patronage.  Its  owner  had  ac- 
quired in  the  venture  '  the  experience,  not  uncommon  in  i/he 
higher  walks  of  American  literature/  as  Duyckinck  well  put 
it,  f  that  if  an  author  would  write  as  a  poet  and  philosopher, 

247 


248  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

and  publish  as  a  gentleman,  he  must  pay  as  well  as  compose/ 
Things  have  changed  somewhat  since  that  day." 

Then  I  told  of  Dana's  occupancy  of  this  house  for  more 
than  forty  years,  and  of  his  death  here  at  the  advanced  age  of 
ninety-one,  the  last  of  his  contemporaries.  I  tried  to  picture 
the  interior  of  the  house  in  his  time.  The  atmosphere  of 
books  breathed  less  of  the  literary  workshop  than  of  the 
serene  abode  of  the  leisurely  man  of  letters.  The  walls  of  the 
various  rooms  were  hung  with  paintings  by  Allston,  who  was 
Dana's  brother-in-law  through  his  second  wife,  and  cousin 
through  his  first  marriage.  Among  other  portraits  was  one  of 
Dana's  father,  Chief  Justice  Dana,  in  gown  and  bands.  There 
was  a  smaller  one  of  the  poet  himself,  by  William  M.  Hunt. 
In  the  library  stood  a  bust  of  Allston. 

"The  work  that  brought  Dana  his  fame,"  I  observed, 
"was  mostly  accomplished  before  be  came  to  this  house, 
although  he  was  then  under  fifty.  His  first  book  which  in- 
cluded 'the  Buccaneer/  was  published  in  1827;  his  second, 
repeating  his  poems  with  some  of  his  prose  writings  added,  in 
1833.  That  was  two  years  before  this  became  his  city  home. 
During  his  first  ten  years  here  he  was  delivering  his  scholarly 
lectures  on  Shakspere's  characters,  about  the  country  and  in 
the  colleges.  His  collected  works  in  two  volumes  came  out 
in  1850,  almost  thirty  years  before  the  close  of  his  life,  and 
proved  to  be  his  last  publication.  It  is  a  melancholy  fact  that, 
of  Dana's  various  literary  ventures,  only  the  Shakspere  lectures 
were  remunerative ;  nor  were  they  really  popular.  And  yet, 
as  was  remarked  after  Ms  death,  the  critics  almost  uniformly 
placed  a  high  value  on  them  as  contributions  to  the  intellectual 
wealth  of  the  country.  It  was  simply  that  the  community 
was  then  not  up  to  their  standard." 

Speaking  of  Bryant  in  connection  with  The  Idle  Man,  re- 
minded me  of  the  circumstances  of  the  first  publication  of  his 
"  Thanatopsis,"  which  he  composed  in  his  nineteenth  year. 
So  I  related  it  in  this  wise,  adopting  a  version  given  after 


OVER  BEACON  HILL.  249 

Dana's  death,  and  differing,  somewhat,  from  the  earlier  ac- 
count. 

"  Dana  was  one  of  the  club  of  gentlemen  who,  about  1814, 
succeeded  Tudor  in  the  North  American  Review,  and  he  became 
associated  with  his  cousin,  Edward  T.  Channing,  in  editing  it. 
One  day  Willard  Phillips,  a  member  of  the  club,  who  after- 
ward became  a  judge  of  probate,  brought  to  the  editor's  room 
several  poems,  some  of  which,  he  said,  were  written  by  a 
young  friend  of  his  in  the  country  named  Bryant.  One  was 
'Thanatopsis/  and  another  <The  Fragment/  subsequently  re- 
named '  The  Entrance  to  a  Wood/  Both  Dana  and  Channing 
were  struck  with  these  poems,  particularly  the  '  Thanatopsis ' ; 
and  Dana  declared  that  no  author  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic 
could  have  written  them.  They  must  have  been  written  by  a 
poet  of  experience,  he  said.  Phillips  then  intimated  that 
young  Bryant  wrote  '  The  Fragment/  and  his  father  the 
'  Thanatopsis.'  Thereupon  Dana  pronounced  both  poems 
admirable,  but  said  that  the  father  was  the  greater  of  the  two 
men.  'Thanatopsis'  was  published  in  the  North  American 
of  November,  1817,  and  '  The  Fragment'  later,  —  the  author 
receiving  no  compensation  for  either. 

"Some  time  afterward,  hearing  that  the  elder  Bryant  was  a 
member  of  the  State  Senate,  Dana  walked  over  from  Cam- 
bridge, where  he  was  then  living,  to  the  Boston  State  House 
to  make  the  "  new  poet's  "  acquaintance.  He  found  a  man  of 
affairs,  strong,  clear,  decided,  but  not  one  of  sentiment;  and 
a  few  minutes'  conversation  satisfied  him  that  the  senator 
could  not  have  written  such  a  poem  as  '  Thanatopsis.'  After 
this  interview  it  was  admitted  that  the  first  statement  was  cor- 
rect —  that  the  young  man  wrote  both  poems. 

"  The  publication  of  these  verses,"  I  added  as  a  sequel  to 
this  story,  "  brought  Bryant  the  invitation  to  deliver  the  Phi 
Beta  Kappa  poem  at  Cambridge  in  1821 ;  and  '  The  Ages  '  was 
the  result.  On  this  occasion  he  was  Dana's  guest  in  Cam- 
bridge. While  there  he  prepared  a  new  edition  of  his  poems 


250  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

written  up  to  that  time,  and  it  was  then  that  he  changed 
<  Thanatopsis '  to  the  form  to  which  it  afterward  held.  The 
intimacy  thus  begun  between  the  two  poets  continued  through 
life,  maintained  by  frequent  exchange  of  visits  and  a  regu- 
lar correspondence.  Bryant,  when  an  editor,  in  his  turn 
published  Dana's  earlier  poems.  These  were  '  The  Dying 
Raven,'  and  'The  Husband  and  Wife's  Grave,'  which  first 
appeared  in  the  New  York  Review  and  Athenceun  Magazine 
in  1825. 

"Dana  was  a  high-bred  American,"  I  concluded.  "His 
grandfather,  Richard  Dana,  was  a  distinguished  lawyer,  and 
leader  on  the  American  side  in  the  Revolutionary  period. 
His  father,  Francis  Dana,  was  secretary  of  legation  to  France 
with  John  Adams,  commissioner  to  Russia  later  in  the  Revolu- 
tion, and  afterward  chief  justice  of  the  Supreme  Court  of 
Massachusetts.  His  mother  was  a  daughter  of  William  Ellery 
of  Rhode  Island,  a  signer  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence, 
another  daughter  of  whom  became  the  mother  of  William 
Ellery  Channing.  Dana  was  born  in  Cambridge,  and  spent 
his  early  youth  in  Newport.  He  was  at  Harvard  in  the  class 
of  1808.  Although  trained  for  the  law,  he  soon  became 
convinced  that  he  was  unfitted  for  legal  life ;  thereupon  he 
took  up  literature  seriously  as  his  profession.  He  gradually 
withdrew  from  the  active  world  after  the  early  death  of  his 
wife.  Seclusion  and  natural  scenery  were  always  his  choice. 
Throughout  his  mature  life  he  spent  large  portions  of  each 
year  by  the  seashore,  at  first  in  his  cottage  at  Nahant ;  then  at 
his  <  old  gray  mansion '  on  the  bluff  at  Manchester-by-the-sea. 
He  never  crossed  the  ocean." 

The  second  Richard  H.  Dana  (born  1815  —  died  1882),  he 
of  the  "  Two  Years  Before  the  Mast,"  lived  for  a  time  in 
Boston,  but  he  was  longest  identified  with  Cambridge.  At 
this  point,  however,  we  drifted  into  talk  of  his  work.  Taking 
up  the  story,  I  told  how  "  Two  Years  Before  the  Mast "  was 
written  from  a  journal  of  his  experiences  and  observations 


OVER  BEACON  HILL.  251 

which  he  kept  during  a  voyage  around  Cape  Horn  to  the 
western  coast  and  back  in  the  late  thirties. 

"  The  voyage,"  my  narrative  ran,  "  was  in  a  Boston  brig  on 
which,  in  a  spirit  of  adventure,  Dana  had  shipped  as  a  com- 
mon sailor,  a  sea  voyage  having  been  prescribed  for  him  when 
an  undergraduate  at  Cambridge,  on  account  of  some  trouble  with 
his  eyes.  The  book  gave  a  true  account  of  a  sailor's  life  in  the 
golden  days  of  the  merchant  marine  in  a  style  fresh  and 
animated.  But  it  was  rejected  by  publisher  after  publisher, 
till  Dana  finally  sold  it  to  the  Harpers  for  a  pittance  of  two 
hundred  and  fifty  dollars.  Its  success  was  immediate,  and  it 
proved  a  little  mine  to  its  publishers,  the  sales  being  continu- 
ous for  years.  It  was  republished  in  England,  translated  into 
various  languages,  adopted  by  the  British  Admiralty  Board  for 
distribution  in  the  English  navy,  and  became  as  popular  in  the 
forecastle  as  in  the  libraries  ashore.  Nearly  thirty  years  after 
its  first  appearance,  Dana  having  prudently  reserved  the  copy- 
right in  his  own  name,  the  book  was  issued  in  a  new  edition 
with  an  additional  chapter,  <  Twenty-four  Years  After.7  This 
met  a  reception  almost  as  flattering  as  the  first  one."  I  spoke 
also  ,of  Dana's  "  The  Seaman's  Friend,"  republished  in  Eng- 
land as  "  The  Seaman's  Manual,"  which  followed  close  upon 
the  first  successes  of  "Before  the  Mast,"  and  took  similar 
rank,  although  it  was  not  so  popular. 

"  Dana  wrote  other  notable  things,"  I  added,  "  and  became 
an  authoritative  writer  on  international  law;  but  this  first 
book  gave  him  his  lasting  popular  fame.  His  '  To  Cuba  and 
Back,'  published  in  1859,  was  in  the  same  felicitous  style.  He 
shone  in  the  profession  of  law  which  his  father  abandoned, 
although  his  tastes  were  strong  for  literature.  He  became  a 
foremost  advocate  especially  in  admiralty  cases.  In  the  early 
years  of  his  practice  he  was  a  i  Conscience  Whig '  and  a  l  Free 
Soiler,'  and  defended  the  fugitive  slaves  Simms  and  Burns 
and  the  rescuers  of  Shadrac,  another  fugitive  slave,  here  in 
Boston.  Unlike  his  father  he  was  an  extensive  traveler 


252  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

abroad.  He  died  suddenly  in  Rome,  from  pneumonia,  and 
was  buried  in  the  cemetery  at  Porte  Pia  near  the  graves  of 
Keats  and  Shelley." 

Directing  Percy's  attention  down  the  street,  I  pointed 
toward  a  snug,  old-style  house  facing  a  cross  street  —  West 
Cedar  Street,  by  name  —  which  I  told  him  was  the  home  of 
Arlo  Bates  (born  in  East  Machias,  Me.,  1850-)  novelist  and 
poet,  best  known,  perhaps,  by  his  "  The  Philistines,"  "  The 
Puritans,"  and  "  Under  the  Beech  Tree."  "  Nearby,  on  West 
Cedar  Street,  in  a  quainter  row  of  houses  (No.  3),"  I  added, 
"  lives  Henry  Childs  Merwin  (born  in  Pittsfield,  Mass.,  1853 — ), 
one  of  the  small  group  of  high  ranking  modern  American  essay- 
ists, a  master  of  English,  some  of  whose  best  work  is  seen  in 
his  rugged  essays  on  *  Tammany/  his  terse  biographical  studies 
of  Aaron  Burr  and  Thomas  Jefferson,  and  his  *  Road,  Track, 
and  Stable,'  which  brings  the  American  horse  to  the  fore." 

Now  we  resumed  our  walk,  passing  up  Chestnut  Street, 
and  in  a  few  moments  were  before  No.  17,  the  long-time  home 
of  Cyrus  A.  Bartol  (born  1813 —  died  1900),  the  preacher  and 
essayist,  whose  portrait-eulogies  of  contemporaries,  delicate, 
subtle,  keen,  have  been  called  the  finest  work  of  this  kind  yet 
done  in  America.  This  quaint  house,  high  set,  with  broad  old- 
fashioned  faqade,  and  antique  entrance  door  flanked  by  four 
slender  pillars,  Percy  declared  to  be  unique  among  the  choice 
old  dwellings  of  the  neighborhood.  An  atmosphere  of  great 
comfort  and  serenity  pervaded  the  interior.  From  the  broad, 
deep  entrance  hall,  with  antique  furnishings,  a  stately  stair- 
case ascended.  On  the  second  floor  was  the  study,  a  sunny 
room,  with  books  and  pictures  and  wide  open  fireplace  set  with 
ancient  andirons.  Other  ample  rooms  open  from  the  halls, 
on  the  walls  of  which  hung  paintings  by  Dr.  Bartol's  artist 
daughter. 

It  was  all  most  interesting  to  Percy  when  he  had  gathered 
the  full  story  of  the  house  :  that  Dr.  Bartol  had  occupied  it  as 
his  city  home  from  near  the  beginning  of  his  ministry  back  in 


OVER  BEACON  HILL.  '  258 

1836,  till  his  death  at  eighty-seven  ;  that  here  he  found  his 
wife,  whom  he  married  in  1838,  —  the  estimable  woman  con- 
nected by  blood  or  marriage  with  "  three  worshipping  genera- 
tions, and  with  as  many  ministers  "  of  the  old  West  Church  in 
Boston,  which  was  his  own  pulpit  from  1837,  first  as  colleague 
then  as  successor  of  Charles  Lowell,  father  of  the  poet  Lowell. 
In  the  sunny  study  here  was  done  most  of  the  work  which  has 
given  Bartol  his  peculiar  place  in  our  literature,  books  of 
essays  mainly,  of  a  style  quite  his  own,  dazzling  in  illustra- 
tion and  metaphor,  issued  at  intervals  through  a  period 
of  thirty  years.  Percy  here  learned  that  Dr.  Bartol  came 
from  Maine,  where  he  was  born  in  the  little  seaport  town  of 
Freeport,  was  a  schoolboy  at  Portland,  and  a  student  at 
Bowdoin,  graduating  in  1832.  Then  he  came  to  Harvard,  arid 
his  life-long  identification  with  Boston  began  a  few  years 
after  his  graduation  from  the  Divinity  School  in  1835.  He 
was  the  last  of  the  famous  group  of  Boston  transcendentalists. 

A  house  next  to  Dr.  Bartol's  was  pointed  out  as  the  meeting- 
place  of  the  Boston  Radical  Club,  in  the  sixties  and  seventies, 
of  which  for  a  time  Emerson  and  others  of  his  kind  were 
shining  lights.  And  in  this  same  house  earlier  lived  for  a  few 
years  Mrs.  Julia  Ward  Howe  before  she  had  written  that  stir- 
ring war-lyric  «  The  Battle  Hymn  of  the  Republic." 

At  the  head  of  Chestnut  Street  we  turned  into  Walnut 
Street,  and  so  crossed  up  to  Mt.  Vernon,  the  next  'hill-street 
parallel  with  Beacon.  And  here,  taking  the  downward  slope, 
we  passed  in  review  a  succesion  of  literary  landmarks.  In  the 
line  of  London-like  dwellings  on  the  north  side,  with  deep 
front  yards  separating  them  from  the  public  walk,  the  upper- 
most (No.  57)  first  claimed  attention.  For  this  was  long  the 
town  house  of  Charles  Francis  Adams,  senior  (born  1807  - 
died  1886),  son  of  one  President  of  the  United  States  and 
grandson  of  another.  It  was  not,  however,  so  distinctively  a 
literary  beacon  as  the  others,  for  the  work  which  Mr.  Adams 
did  in  literature,  —  the  editing  of  the  Diary  and  the  ten 


254  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

volumes  of  the  works  of  his  grandfather,  President  John 
Adams,  and  the  Letters  of  his  grandmother,  Abigail  Adams, 
with  his  memoir  of  her,  —  was  done,  for  the  most  part,  at  the 
ancestral  seat  in  Quincy.  Still,  as  associated  somewhat  inti- 
mately with  his  career  in  statesmanship,  it  was  interesting. 

Mr.  Adams  died  in  this  house,  I  remarked.  He  had  reached 
his  eightieth  year,  but  his  public  career  had  closed  fourteen 
years  before  with  the  accomplishment  of  the  Geneva  Award, 
which  fitly  followed  upon  his  estimable  service  as  American 
minister  to  England  during  the  Civil  War.  And  I  mentioned, 
by  the  way,  that  he  was  a  native  of  Boston,  born  eighteen  years 
before  his  father  became  President.  His  birthplace  was  a  little 
mansion  which  stood  where  now  is  the  Hotel  Touraine  at  the 
corner  of  Tremont  and  Boylston  streets ;  and  he  was  baptized 
by  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson's  father. 

The  next  house  below  (No.  55),  with  its  classic  entrance 
door,  was  most  engaging  to  Percy  when  he  was  told  that  this 
was  Thomas  Bailey  Aldrich's  city  home.  Seldom,  he  thought, 
had  poet  been  more  happily  lodged.  The  house  seemed  to  him 
a  poetically  fit  successor  to  the  poet's  boyhood  home  in  his 
grandfather's  mansion  down  in  Portsmouth.  Inside  the  prom- 
ise of  the  exterior  was  fulfilled.  The  library,  from  floor  to 
ceiling  lined  with  books,  some  of  rare  editions,  some  in  exquisite 
bindings,  with  the  poet's  desk  of  antique  pattern  in  a  comforta- 
ble corner,  was  on  the  drawing-room,  or  second,  floor.  Off  from 
the  deep  entrance-hall  opened  the  hospitable  dining-room  whose 
walls  might  tell  of  many  a  dainty  feast,  and  sparkling  table- 
talk,  about  the  mahogany  of  the  gracious  and-  cheery  host. 

"  What  of  Aldrich's  published  works  have  been  written  in 
this  house  it  is  hard  to  tell,"  I  replied  to  Percy's  questions, 
"  for  he  has  often  published  long  after  he  has  composed.  His 
habit  of  holding  a  poem  or  a  story  till  it  is  fashioned  quite  to 
his  satisfaction  is  one  of  his  most  marked  characteristics.  Once 
he  was  asked  by  the  managing  editor  of  a  daily  newspaper  to 
write  an  editorial  article  for  the  next  morning's  issue,  upon  an 


OVER  BEACON  HILL.  255 

eminent  man  of  letters  and  intimate  contemporary  of  his,  who 
had  just  died.  He  could  not  possibly  do  it,  he  protested.  It 
was  hopeless  for  him  to  attempt  to  write  within  a  definite  time- 
limit.  Nor  could  he  let  an  article  go  from  his  hands  till  he 
had  worked  it  out  thoroughly.  <  Why,'  he  exclaimed,  taking 
a  manuscript  page  from  a  pigeon-hole  of  his  desk,  '  here's  a 
poem  I  wrote  I  can't  say  how  long  ago,  and  I've  been  hold- 
ing it  tili  the  right  word  comes  to  me  in  place  of  one 


HOME   OF   THOMAS    BAILEY   ALDRICH,    BOSTON. 
(Former  Town   Home  of  Charles   Francis  Adarns,   Senior,  at  the   Right.) 

which  is  not  right.     When  that  word  comes  I'll  let  the  little 
thing  go/ 

"  George  Parsons  Lathrop  has  related  that  when  Aldrich 
was  once  invited  to  write  something  for  a  soldier's  reunion,  he 
declined  because  he  could  not  stir  himself  up  to  the  occasion ; 
but  the  very  day  after  the  reunion,  the  strain  being  relaxed  and 
the  mood  coining,  he  wrote  the  tender  war-eulogy  '  Spring  in 
New  England/  which  appears  in  his  volume  { Flower  and 


256 


LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 


Thorn.'  Another  illustration  of  his  moods  Lathrop  has  given 
in  repeating  this  whimsical  remark  of  his  :  — '  I've  got  a  story 
under  way  that  promises  well.  But  just  as  my  people  were  in 
the  midst  of  a  flourishing  conversation  they  stopped.  No  one 
of  them  would  say  a  thing,  and  there  they  sit,  while  I've  been 

kept  waiting  a  couple 

of  weeks  for  the  next 
speech ! ' 

"  Aldrich's  mode  of 
work  is  not  methodi- 
cal. That  is,  he  is  not 
like  those  prosaic  souls 
who  can  sit  them- 
selves down  to  their 
desks  at  a  given  hour 
and  minute  each  day, 
and  write  till  a  given 
hour  and  minute,  pro- 
ducing a  given  num- 
ber of  thousand  words 
with  irritating  regu- 
larity. He  writes  as 
his  mood  is,  sometimes 
one  part  of  the  day, 
sometimes  another, 
producing  more  or  less 
as  the  spirit  moves. 
So  he  is  never  careless 
always  exquisite  in  form  and 


THOMAS    BAILEY   ALDRICH. 


It   is 


in   his    workmanship, 
finish." 

The  last  house  in  this  row  of  dwellings  was  identified  with 
William  Ellery  Channing  (born  1760 — died  1842),  it  having 
been  the  home  of  that  remarkable  man  during  the  latter  years 
of  his  life.  As  we  tarried  before  it  Percy  followed,  evidently 
with  keen  interest,  the  sketch  I  outlined  of  the  great  divine's 


OVER   BEACON  HILL. 


i  n>  tf7  ^7  ^ 


\ 

'*£ 


258 


LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 


career  and  the  manner  of  his  work  which  made  so  strong  an 
impression  and  exerted  so  wide  an  influence  upon  his  time. 

"  Channing's  Boston  home,"  I  related,  "  was  the  Mecca  of 
all  sorts  and  conditions  of  men.  He  was  accessible  to  all 
comers.  Young  men,  poor  men,  unknown  men,  it  has  been 
said,  could  visit  him,  and  '  find  him  as  ready  to  talk  with  them 

as  with  the  Euro- 
pean savants  and 
British  noblemen, 
who,  so  soon  as  they 
landed  in  Boston, 
would  find  their 
way'  to  his  study. 
Slight  of  frame,  fra- 
gile, from  his  young 
manhood  never  en- 
joying a  full  day  of 
unimpaired  vigor,  he 
pursued  his  work 
with  unflagging  con- 
stancy. Here  is  the 
story  of  an  average 
day  of  his  Boston 
life,"  and  I  read 
from  my  note-book 

HOME   OF   WILLIAM    ELLERY    CHANNING.  .«.•«•  i 

the  following  conden- 
sation which  I  had  made  from  the  pages  of  the  biography  of 
him  by  his  eminent  nephew,  Willfam  Henry  Channing : 


"  '  The  sun  is  just  rising,  and  the  fires  are  scarcely  lighted,  when,  with 
rapid  step,  Dr.  Channing  enters  his  study.  He  has  been  wakeful  during 
many  hours,  his  brain  teeming,  and,  under  the  excitement  of  his  morning 
bath,  he  longs  to  use  the  earliest  moments  for  work.  .  .  .  His  first  act  is 
to  write  down  the  thoughts  which  have  been  given  in  his  vigils  ;  next,  he 
reads  a  chapter  or  more  in  Griesbach's  edition  of  the  Greek  Testament ; 
and  after  a  quick  glance  over  the  newspapers  of  the  day,  he  takes  his 


OVER   BEACON  HILL.  259 

light  repast.  Morning  prayers  follow,  and  then  he  retires  to  his  study- 
table. 

"  'If  he  is  reading,  you  will  at  once  notice  this  peculiarity,  that  he 
studies  pen  in  hand,  and  that  his  book  is  crowded  with  folded  sheets  of 
paper,  which  continually  multiply,  as  trains  of  thought  are  suggested. 
These  notes  are  rarely  quotations,  but  chiefly  questions  and  answers, 
qualifications,  condensed  statements,  germs  of  interesting  views;  and 
when  the  volume  is  finished,  they  are  carefully  selected,  arranged,  and 
under  distinct  heads,  placed  among  other  papers  in  a  secretary.  If  he  is 
writing,  unless  making  preparation  for  the  pulpit  or  for  publication,  the 
same  process  of  accumulating  notes  is  continued,  which,  at  the  end  of 
each  day,  or  week,  are  also  filed.  .  .  .  When  a  topic  is  to  be  treated  at 
length  .  .  .  these  notes  are  consulted,  .  .  .  and  then,  with  treasures  of 
memory  orderly  arranged,  Dr.  Channing  fuses  and  recasts  his  gathered 
ores  under  the  warm  impulse  of  the  moment.  .  .  .  With  flying  pen  he 
makes  a  rough  draft  of  all  he  intends  to  say,  on  sheets  of  paper  folded 
lengthwise,  leaving  half  of  each  page  bare.  He  then  reads  over  what  he 
has  written,  and  in  the  vacant  half  page  supplies  defects,  strikes  out 
redundances,  indicates  the  needed  qualifications,  modifies  expressions. 
Thus  sure  of  his  thought  and  aims,  and  conscientiously  prepared,  he 
abandons  himself  to  the  ardor  of  composition.  .  .  . 

'* '  By  noon  Dr.  Channing's  power  of  study  and  writing  is  spent  and 
he  seeks  the  fresh  air.  .  .  .  After  dinner  he  lies  for  a  time  upon  the  sofa, 
and  walks  again,  or  drives  into  the  country.  Sunset  ...  he  keeps  as  a  holy 
season,  looking  from  upper  windows  which  command  wide  prospects.  .  .  . 
During  the  winter  twilight  he  likes  to  be  silent  and  alone.  After  tea  he 
usually  listens  for  an  hour  or  more  to  reading.  .  .  .  Then  guests  come  in, 
strangers  to  be  introduced,  earnest  reformers  seeking  his  sympathy  or 
advice,  familiar  acquaintances  with  interesting  topics  of  the  day.  .  .  .  On 
other  occasions  a  party  of  select  friends  gather  in  his  rooms  by  invitation, 
for  the  purpose  of  unfolding  some  great  subject  of  speculative  or  practical 
interest,  not  in  the  way  of  discussion  so  much  as  colloquy.' 


"  Dr.  Bartol,  his  intimate  friend  and  near  neighbor  (Dr.  Bar- 
toPs  Chestnut-Street  estate  opened,  at  the  rear,  nearly  opposite 
Channing's  house),  pictures  him  during  his  later  years,  in  figure 
short,  slender,  thin  with  '  scarce  more  than  a  hundred  pounds 
of  flesh'  clothing  *  in  him  the  informing  soul.'  When  he  went 
out  he  was  obliged  to  wrap  his  weak  chest  in  many  a  covering 
against  the  damp  and  cold,  and  he  was  often  « only  able  to  pace 


260  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

up  and  down  on  the  sidewalk  before  his  dwelling  in  the  sun, 
till  his  slowly  moving  form  became  one  of  the  sights  of  Bos- 
ton.' A  quainter  picture  is  this  by  Longfellow,  '  He  wears  a 
blue  camlet  wrapper,  silver-bowed  spectacles,  a  shawl  round  his 
neck,  and  an  enormous  hat,  coming  down  over  his  eyes.' 

"  Channing  lost  his  health  through  his  ascetic  practices  and 
his  passion  for  study,  when  tutor  of  a  group  of  boys  in  a  family 
at  Richmond,  Va.,  just  after  his  graduation  from  Harvard,  in 
his  nineteenth  year  (1798).  According  to  his  biographer,  he 
was  absorbed  in  teaching  through  the  day,  and  passed  most  of 
the  night  in  study,  usually  remaining  at  his  desk  till  two  or 
three  o'clock  in  the  morning,  and  sometimes  till  daylight. 
Meanwhile,  to  the  end  that  he  might  overcome  effeminacy, 
after  the  manner  of  the  Stoics,  he  accustomed  himself  to  sleep 
on  the  bare  floor,  and  would  spring  up  at  any  hour  of  waking 
to  walk  about  in  the  cold.  With  the  same  purpose,  he  made 
experiments  in  diet  and  was  rigidly  abstemious,  while  he  ne- 
glected exercise  for  too  close  application.  Thus  an  originally 
fine  constitution  was  broken,  and  from  that  time  till  his  death 
he  was  battling  against  disease. 

"  He  came  to  Boston  in  1803  and  early  made  his  pulpit  in 
the  old  Federal  Street  church,  widely  famous  through  his  won- 
derful preaching,  which  displayed  unusual  independence  of 
mind  for  that  day,  lofty  purposes,  and  ripe  scholarship.  His 
church  was  always  crowded,  and  to  'hear  Channing  preach' 
became  one  of  the  chief  attractions  of  the  town  to  visiting 
strangers.  His  voice  was  marvelous.  Bartol  has  described  it 
as  having  'more  in  it  of  the  violin  than  the  flute,  yet  with 
liquid  notes  such  as  Wilhelmj  or  Joachim  can  fetch  from  the 
strings,  and  with  an  habitual  rising  inflection,  rather  than  ca- 
dence, at  the  end  of  the  sentence,  which  seemed  to  raise  every 
hearer  to  the  skies.  It  melted  and  resounded,  was  clear  when 
it  whispered,  and  a  clarion  when  it  rang.' 

"  He  was  first  brought  into  general  notice  throughout  the 
country  by  his  published  anti-war  sermons  in  1812-'1G.  Sub- 


OVER  BEACON  HILL.  261 

sequently  his  reviews  and  other  contributions  to  literature  ex- 
tended his  reputation  among  literary  men  abroad.  On  all 
questions  and  reforms  which  accorded  with  his  principles  he 
was  outspoken,  unmoved  by  popular  applause  or  criticism.  He 
died  at  Bennington,  Vt.,  while  on  a  journey  for  his  health,  after 
a  service  of  nearly  forty  years  in  his  Boston  pulpit,  and  was 
buried  at  Mount  Auburn,  in  Cambridge.  The  monument  over 
his  grave,  which  his  church  erected,  was  designed  by  Washing- 
ton Allston  (whose  first  wife  was  Channing's  sister  Ann),  and 
George  Ticknor  wrote  the  inscription  for  it.  This  records  him  as 
'  honored  throughout  Christendom  for  his  eloquence  and  cour- 
age in  maintaining  and  advancing  the  Great  Causes  of  Truth, 
Keligion,  and  Human  Freedom.' 

Channing  was  also  closely  identified  with  Newport,  Rhode 
Island,  his  birthplace.  There  he  spent  most  of  his  summers, 
and  his  love  for  the  old  sea-side  town  was  constant  throughout 
his  life. 

Crossing  to  the  opposite  side  of  the  street,  we  took  a  look 
at  the  house  numbered  57,  the  home  of  Margaret  Deland 
(born  1857 — )  whose  reputation  in  the  modern  literary  world 
was  established  by  her  first  novel  "  John  Ward,  Preacher." 
This  house  attracted  Percy's  attention  before  he  understood 
that  it  was  a  landmark  on  our  list,  from  the  peculiar  fashion 
of  its  faqade.  The  long  windows  extending  across  the  entire 
front  at  the  first  story,  and  the  glass  extension  along  the  roof 
line,  betokened,  he  thought,  an  artist's  home  ;  and  the  refine- 
ment of  its  setting,  a  prosperous  artist's  home.  And  when  he 
learned  whose  house  it  was,  he  remarked  gallantly  that  his 
surmise  was  correct,  for  Mrs.  Deland  is  an  artist  of  the  pen 
instead  of  the  brush.  He  confessed  that  he  had  not  himself 
read  her  stories,  but  he  had  heard  his  father  (who,  as  they 
say  in  England,  "took  in  "  the  Atlantic)  speak  of  her  work  as 
superior ;  and  surely  his  father  ought  to  know  for  he  was  the 
president  of  a  reading-club  at  home.  I  explained  that  the 
expanse  of  windows  was  to  open  the  house  to  the  sunlight 


262  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

and  to  cheer  the  indoor  gardens,  for  Mrs.  Deland  is  an  ardent 
cultivator  of  flowers,  especially  of  jonquils,  of  which  it  has 
been  her  custom  to  give  exhibitions  and  sales  in  their  blossom- 


Reproduced  by  permission  of  Harper  &  Brothers. 
MARGARET   DELAND. 


ing  season,  for  the  benefit  of  some  charity  or  philanthropic 
mission. 

"  This  is  Mrs.  Deland's  town  home,"  I  remarked.     "  The 
open  seasons  are  spent  in  her  country  home  in  Kennebunkport, 


OVER  BEACON  HILL. 


263 


Maine.  There  a  considerable  portion  of  her  later  work  has 
been  composed,  but  it  has  generally  been  finally  shaped  for 
publication  in  her  work-room  here.  Although  her  topics  are 
New  England  ones,  she  is  not  a  New  Englander.  She  was 
born  in  Pennsylvania,  educated  in  New  York,  and  only  came 
to  New  England  in  her  maturity.  She  was  born  Margaret 


MARGARET    DELANO'S    LIBRARY. 

Wade  Campbell.  Her  father  was  a  merchant  in  Allegheny, 
her  mother  a  daughter  of  a  United  States  army  officer.  Both 
parents  died  when  she  was  a  child,  and  she  was  brought  up 
in  an  uncle's  family.  She  was  a  school  girl  at  '  Pelham's 
Priory/  an  English-like  boarding  school  at  New  Rochelle, 
New  York,  and  later  studied  designing  in  the  Cooper  Union, 
New  York  City. 

"It  was  not  until  after  her  removal  to  Boston,  and  she 


264  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

had  become  Mrs.  Deland,  that  her  first  appearance  in  litera- 
ture was  made,  and  this  was  with  a  volume  of  poems.  It  was 
<  The  Old  Garden  and  Other  Verses,'  published  in  1886.  The 
critics  received  it  kindly.  The  following  year  'John  Ward, 
Preacher/  appeared,  almost  simultaneously,  it  happened,  with 
'  Robert  Elsmere,'  of  similar  character.  Accordingly  the  two 
were  not  infrequently  considered  together.  *  Sidney,'  in  some 
respects  stronger  than  the  first  venture,  came  two  years  later, 
after  running  as  a  serial  in  the  Atlantic  ;  and  four  years  after- 
ward, '  Philip  and  His  Wife.'  Meanwhile  some  short  stories 
were  successfully  published.  Like  others  who  have  made  the 
surest  reputations  Mrs.  Deland  writes  slowly,  with  painstaking 
revision,  and  lets  her  creations  go  forth  only  when  they  are 
fully  fashioned  to  her  satisfaction,  without  regard  to  the  time 
consumed  in  their  fashioning." 

Now  we  turned  into  Louisburg  Square,  taking  the  lower 
side  of  the  enclosed  green  with  its  lofty  trees  and  little 
weather  worn  statues,  that  we  might  pass  the  house  (No.  4) 
which  William  Dean  Howells  (born  at  Martin's  Ferry,  Ohio, 
1837 — )  occupied  for  a  few  seasons  in  the  late  seventies,  when 
he  was  a  Bostonian,  and  editing  the  Atlantic;  and  near  by 
(No.  10)  the  last  Boston  home  of  Louisa  M.  Alcott,  where  her 
father,  Bronson  Alcott,  died.  Thence  we  crossed  to  quaint 
Pinckney  Street,  an  old-time  haunt  of  Boston  literary  folk. 
Taking  the  upward  grade  and  the  south  side,  our  first  land- 
mark was  the  house  No.  62,  where  long  dwelt  George  Stillman 
Hillard  (born  in  Machias,  Me.,  1808  —  died  in  Longwood,  near 
Boston,  1879),  one  of  the  most  scholarly  of  that  brilliant 
coterie  who  sustained  the  literary  leadership  of  Boston  in  the 
second  third  of  the  nineteenth  century. 

"  Hillard's  publications  '  between  covers,'  "  I  remarked  as 
we  paused  for  a  moment  here,  "are  but  a  small  part  of  his 
literary  accomplishment.  His  career  began  simultaneously  in 
letters  and  in  law,  and  he  achieved  equal  distinction  in  both 
among  his  contemporaries.  He  began  practice  in  the  early 


OVER   BEACON  HILL.  265 

thirties,  as  a  partner  with  Charles  Sumner,  and  at  the  same 
time  took  up  the  work  of  an  editor,  critic,  and  essayist.  He 
had  the  name  of  the  purest  classical  scholar  of  his  generation 
in  the  Boston  bar.  Among  his  earliest  extended  undertakings 
was  the  Boston  edition  of  Spenser's  Poetical  Works  in  five 
volumes,  published  in  1839,  with  his  critical  introduction  and 
notes,  which  were  accepted  as  models  of  literary  thought  and 
execution.  But  his  reputation  in  the  widest  field  was  gained 
by  the  '  Hillard's  Readers,'  those  carefully  edited  reading 
books  for  schools,  issued  about  1856,  which  instilled  a  love  of 
good  literature,  and  a  knowledge  of  the  best  English  writers  to 
generations  of  American  school  boys.  Afterward  these  readers 
were  used  in  the  schools  of  Brazil,  by  order  of  Dom  Pedro, 
to  give  their  pupils  the  best  idea  of  the  English  language. 

"His  'Six  Months  in  Italy/  published  in  1847,  with  its 
charm  of  diction,  passed  quickly  through  several  editions, 
unusual  with  American  books  of  that  day,  and  was  repub- 
lished  in  England.  Hillard  was  Boston  bred,  although  a 
native  of  Maine.  He  was  also  a  Harvard  man,  class  of  1828, 
and  in  later  years  a  Phi  Beta  Kappa  orator. 

"  This  was  Hillard's  home  from  1848  till  a  few  years  before 
his  death.  He  had  previously  occupied  a  house  a  few  doors 
above,"  and  we  stepped  up  to  No.  54,  "  which  is  especially  in- 
teresting as  that  from  which  Hawthorne  sent  his  unique  note 
to  James  Freeman  Clarke  engaging  the  good  minister  to  marry 
him  to  Sophia  Peabody,  but  naming  neither  place  nor  day.  It 
ran  in  this  wise,"  —  and  I  read : 

"No.  54  PINCKNEY  STREET, 

BOSTON,  JULY,  1842. 

My  Dear  Sir.  —  Though  personally  a  stranger  to  you,  I  am  about  to 
request  of  you  the  greatest  favor  which  I  can  receive  from  any  man.  I 
am  to  be  married  to  Miss  Sophia  Peabody  ;  and  it  is  our  mutual  desire 
that  you  should  perform  the  ceremony.  Unless  it  should  be  decidedly 
a  rainy  day,  a  carriage  will  call  for  you  at  half-past  eleven  o'clock  in 
the  forenoon.  Very  respectfully  yours, 

NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE." 


266 


LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 


"  The  Peabodys  were  then  living  in  Boston,  and  were  friends 
and  parishioners  of  Dr.  Clarke :  so  the  minister  probably  knew 
all  about  the  coming  event.  Hillard  was  an  intimate  friend  of 
both  Hawthorne  and  the  Peabody  family.  Hawthorne  had 
recently  withdrawn  from  the  community  of  Brook  Farm,  in  the 
then  country  town  of  West  Eoxbury,  now  a  part  of  Boston 
city,  —  the  scene,  by  the  way,  of  his  '  Blithedale  Romance.' 
The  marriage  took  place  on  the  ninth  of  July,  at  the  home  of 
the  Peabodys  in  West  Street,  the  site  of  which  was  long  since 
covered  with  shops,  and  Hawthorne  took  his  bride  to  the 
<Old  Manse'  in  Concord.  It  is  said  that  Hawthorne  and 

Clarke  never  met  again  in  life  ; 
but  Clarke  performed  the  last 
rites  at  the  burial  of  the  ro- 
mancer." 

Our  next  point  of  interest 
was  a  house  a  little  above,  the 
home  of  Edwin  Doak  Mead 
(born  1849—)  editor  of  the 
New  England  Magazine,  and 
the  developer  of  the  far-reach- 
ing "  Old  South "  system  of 
historical  work  for  the  instruc- 
tion of  youth  in  genuine  Ameri- 
can history,  by  methods  most 
engaging,  —  a  monument  of 
patriotic  and  intelligent  en- 
deavor. "Mead  is  of  New 
Hampshire  birth,"  I  chatted 
on.  "  He  was  born  in  Chesterfield  on  the  Connecticut  River, 
the  son  of  a  farmer;  and  near  by,  in  Brattleboro,  on  the 
Vermont  side  of  the  river,  lived  during  his  boyhood  his  cousins, 
the  Mead  boys  and  girls,  who  in  after  years  became,  one,  the 
distinguished  sculptor,  Larkin  G.  Mead,  another,  the  architect, 
William  R.  Mead ;  and  one  of  the  girls,  the  wife  of  William 


EDWIN    D.    MEAD. 


OVER   BEACON  HILL.  267 

D.  Howells.  Young  Mead  got  what  education  he  could  from 
the  village  school  and  through  the  reading  of  many  books ;  and 
at  length  came  to  Boston,  to  take  a  clerkship  in  the  <  Old  Corner 
Bookstore,'  at  that  time  Ticknor  &  Fields's.  So  soon  as  he  was 
able,  however,  he  left  business  and  went  abroad,  to  acquire  a 
more  liberal  education,  in  German  and  English  universities. 
Then  he  took  up  the  literary  life,  which  he  has  since  followed, 


EDWIN    D.    MEAD'S     LITERARY    PARLOR. 

along  the  way  concerned  much  in  wholesome  philanthropic, 
educational,  reform,  and  civic  matters,  as  becomes  the  good 
citizen.  His  most  notable  published  works,  all  practical  con- 
tributions to  literature,  are  his  '  Martin  Luther  :  a  Study  of  the 
Reformation/  ' Outline  Studies  of  Holland,'  and  'Representa- 
tive Government.' " 

Continuing  along  the  narrow  street,  we  passed  one  of  the 
earlier  Boston  homes  of  the  Alcotts,  a  narrow-faced  house  with 
lofty  stoop  (No.  20).  It  was  occupied  by  the  family  in  Louisa's 


268  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

young  womanhood,  and  was  the  scene  of  some  of  her  early 
struggles  in  authorship;  also  of  a  story,  somewhat  pathetic, 
which  I  would  reserve  for  telling  in  Concord,  I  remarked  as  we 
walked  by.  Then  we  came  upon  another  poet's  former  home. 
This  was  the  modest  little  house  No.  16,  occupied  by  Louise 
Imogen  Guiney  (born  in  Boston,  1861 — )  when  preparing  her 
fourth  book  of  poems,  which  appeared  in  1900.  And  at  Percy's 
bidding  I  recalled  Miss  Guiney's  delicately  refined  work,  best 
characterized  in  a  stanza  from  some  verses  of  the  older  Boston 
poet,  Dr.  Thomas  W.  Parsons,  written  "  On  Beading  a  Book  of 
Poems  "  by  her,  which  I  quoted  : 

"Not  for  all  eyes  those  lovely  lines: 
Too  deep  the  music  of  her  art ; 
Yet  every  soul  that  reads,  divines 

A  touch  that  trembles  from  the  heart." 

"Her  first  volume  struck  a  note  which  the  critics  wel- 
comed," I  said.  "  This  was  <  Songs  at  the  Start,'  published  in 
1884.  Three  years  later  appeared  '  The  White  Sail,  and  Other 
Poems'  of  stronger  and  richer  fiber.  Five  years  later  came 
1 A  Eoadside  Harp :  a  Book  of  Verses ' ;  the  next  year,  <  Eng- 
land and  Yesterday  ' ;  and  then  <  The  Martyr's  Idyl,  and  Shorter 
Poems.'  Between  these  poetical  collections  appeared  little  vol- 
umes of  her  prose,  including  'Patrins,'  a  collection  of  essays 
marked  by  the  true  poetic  touch.  Miss  Guiney  is  the  daughter 
of  a  soldier  of  the  Civil  War,  General  P.  R.  Guiney.  She 
graduated  from  the  Convent  of  the  Sacred  Heart,  in  Provi- 
dence, Rhode  Island,  and  began  writing  at  once,  publishing  first 
in  Boston  periodicals.  She  has  spent  much  time  abroad  in  the 
close  and  ardent  study  of  Old  World  classics  on  their  native 
soil." 

«  Who  was  T.  W.  Parsons  ?  "  Percy  asked.  «  I  confess  his 
name  is  quite  new  to  me." 

"Thomas  William  Parsons  (born  in  Boston,  1819  —  died  in 
Scituate,  1892),  according  to  Charles  Eliot  Norton's  dictum, 


OVER    REACON   HILL.  269 

was  one  of  the  three  most  eminent  lovers  and  disciples  of  Dante 
in  America,  the  other  two  being  Longfellow  and  Lowell.  His 
miscellaneous  poems  and  sonnets  have  been  extolled  by  other 
poets  for  their  exquisiteness  in  form  and  diction ;  yet  he  was 
singularly  indifferent  to  public  recognition,  and  published 
almost  reluctantly  and  at  rare  intervals.  He  preferred  most 
an  audience  of  friends  and  the  literary  coteries  with  which  he 
was  allied.  Stedman  calls  him  a  poet  for  poets  rather  than  for 
the  people.  He  stood  for  *  The  Poet '  in  Longfellow's  l  Way- 
side Inn ' ;  and  he  himself,  at  a  later  day,  pictured  the  aban- 
doned hostelry  in  his  lines  on  'The  Old  House  in  Sudbury 
Twenty  Years  Afterwards ' : 

"  '  House  and  landlord  both  have  rest. 

On  the  broken  hearth  a  dotard 

Sits,  and  fancies  foolish  things; 
And  the  poet  weaves  romances 

Which  the  maiden  fondly  sings, 

All  about  the  ancient  hostel 

With  its  legends  and  its  oaks, 
And  the  quaint  old-bachelor  brothers 

And  their  minstrelsy  and  jokes. 

No  man  knows  them  any  longer : 

All  are  gone,  and  I  remain 
Reading,  as  it  were,  mine  epitaph 

On  the  rainbow-colored  pane.' 

Dr.  Parsons  was  the  son  of  a  former  Dr.  T.  W.  Parsons, 
born  in  Boston,  but  dwelling  abroad  a  large  part  of  his  life. 
At  seventeen  his  father  took  him  to  Italy ;  and  there  during 
a  winter  passed  between  Pisa,  Florence,  and  Rome,  began  his 
passionate  love  for  Dante,  which  possessed  him  throughout 
his  life.  Thus  early  he  started  upon  the  translation  of  the 
'  Inferno ' ;  and  in  1843,  sometime  after  his  return  home,  he  put 
forth,  anonymously,  the  first  part  of  his  work  in  a  thin  volume 


270  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

with  the  title  <  The  First  Ten  Cantos  of  the  Inferno  of  Dante 
Alighieri,  Newly  Translated  into  English  Verse.'  It  won  for 
him  the  instant  recognition  of  scholars  on  both  sides  of  the 
Atlantic.  He  was  then  twenty-four,  and  it  was  not  till  he  had 
reached  his  forty-eighth  year  (in  1867)  that  the  complete  ver- 
sion made  its  appearance.  This  contained  a  revision  of  the 
earlier  part.  Nine  years  later  he  published  'The  Ante-Purga- 
torio.'  Subsequently  cantos  of  the  'Purgatorio'  appeared  at 
irregular  intervals  in  the  Catholic  World.  He  died  with  his 
task  unfinished,  the  '  Purgatorio '  being  only  partly  completed, 
and  the  l  Paradiso '  only  begun.  After  his  death  all  that  he 
had  accomplished  was  published  in  the  volume  '  The  Divine 
Comedy  of  Dante  Alighieri :  Translated  into  English  Verse/ 
with  an  appreciative  introductory  essay  by  Professor  Norton, 
and  a  memorial  sketch  of  him  by  Miss  Guiney. 

"  His  progress  was  slow  because  of  his  extreme  fastidious- 
ness, the  high  standard  he  had  set  for  himself,  and  his  peculiar 
temperament.  He  once  said  that  no  one  should  approach 
Dante's  temple  who  was  not  master  of  his  time,  and  he  devoted 
his  without  stint  to  patient  study.  He  would  not  and  could 
not  be  hurried.  When  once  pressed  by  his  publishers  for  the 
return  of  proofs  sent  him  for  revision,  he  retorted,  '  I  expect 
to  be  a  student  of  Dante  through  all  eternity,  and  therefore  I 
cannot  afford  to  be  hurried  by  the  exigencies  of  your  house/ 

"  His  fugitive  poems  were  from  time  to  time  collected  from 
the  literary  corners  of  Boston  newspapers  and  magazines  where 
they  first  appeared,  and  published  in  a  few  small  volumes. 
One  of  these,  'The  Ghetto  di  Roma/  brought  out  in  1854, 
included  his  '  Lines  on  a  Bust  of  Dante/  published  in  its  first 
draft  as  a  preface  to  his  '  First  Ten  Cantos  of  the  Inferno/ 
and  now  refashioned,  which  Stedman  has  called  the  'peer  of 
any  modern  lyric  in  our  tongue.'  Later  selections  appeared  in 
'The  Magnolia'  in  1866,  in  'The  Old  House  at  Sudbury'  in 
1870,  and  in  ' The  Shadow  of  the  Obelisk '  in  1872,  the  latter 
bearing  a  London  imprint. 


OVER  BEACON  HILL.  271 

"  Dr.  Parsons  studied  medicine  in  the  Harvard  Medical 
School,  and  practiced  successfully  for  some  years  in  Boston, 
and  afterward  in  London,  the  unpoetic  profession  of  dentistry. 
For  the  last  twenty  years  of  his  life,  which  were  devoted  alto- 
gether to  his  literary  pursuits,  his  home  was  alternately  in 
Boston,  in  the  country  town  of  Way  land,  and  in  placid  Scit- 
uate  on  the  South  Shore  of  Massachusetts  Bay.  His  Boston 
home  was  in  this  neighborhood.  It  was  in  an  old  '  Boston 
swell  front '  house  on  Beacon  Hill  Place,  a  delightfully  secluded 
by-way,  hard  by  the  Boston  Athenaeum,  his  favorite  haunt, 
close  to  the  throbbing  city.  House  and  by-way  with  neighbor- 
ing estates  were  blotted  out  a  few  years  ago  to  make  space  for 
the  park  about  the  State  House.  Dr.  Parsons's  sister,  the  sec- 
ond wife  of  the  poet  George  Lunt,  of  whom  we  heard  in 
Newburyport,  was  also  a  writer  of  graceful  lyrics." 

We  were  now  on  the  opposite  side  of  Pinckney  Street, 
before  the  plain  little  brick  house  (No.  11)  distinguished  as  the 
home  of  Edwin  Percy  Whipple,  the  critic  and  essayist,  of  whose 
literary  start  in  Salem  we  had  made  note.  Accordingly  his 
brilliant  story  from  the  time  of  his  leaving  Salem  and  coming 
to  Boston  was  next  narrated. 

"  That  was  in  1839,"  I  said,  « when  he  was  but  twenty ; 
and  so  early  he  had  begun  to  exercise  his  critical  faculty  with 
keenness  and  strength.  He  found  work  first  as  clerk  in  a  State- 
Street  broker's  office,  and  then  as  superintendent  of  a  business 
institution  of  that  time  —  the  News  Exchange  Room.  Mean- 
while he  continued  zealously  his  self-training  so  systematically 
started  in  Salem.  He  became  the  soul  of  the  club  of  young 
merchants'  clerks  alluded  to  in  our  talk  about  another  member 
of  it,  —  James  T.  Fields,  —  when  we  were  in  Portsmouth.  This 
club,  called  'The  Attic  Nights/  from  its  meeting-place,  —  an 
attic  room  in  a  business  building,  —  had  exercises  in  debate, 
declamation,  and  composition ;  and  early  collected  a  library, 
from  which  developed  the  Boston  Mercantile  Library,  a  worthy 
Boston  institution  preceding  the  Public  Library.  These  young 


272 


LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 


fellows  educated  each  other  by  their  keen  criticisms  of  each 
other's  efforts,  their  sparkling  interchange  of  ideas,  their  rol- 
licking wit.  The  club  was  for  them  a  practical  college,  a  fine 
training  school  in  composition  and  in  speech. 

"Whipple  was  their  cleverest  literary  man.  They  organ- 
ized public  lecture  courses,  and  he  was  their  first  lecturer. 
His  maiden  effort  was  the  first  draft  of  his  essay  on  Macau- 
lay,  which  became  celebrated,  and  upon  its  publication  in  a 
magazine  elicited  from  the  English  historian  a  letter  express- 
ing high  regard  of  the  youthful  critic.  Whipple  was  in  his 

twenty-fifth  year  when  this 
essay  was  written.  He  had 
enormous  powers  of  intellec- 
tual absorption.  Most  of  his 
best  work  was  done  between 
1840  and  1850,  although  in  his 
subsequent  writing  he  never 
fell  short  of  his  standard.  He 
;  was  one  of  the  literary  lecturers 
7  most  sought  during  the  flour- 

\  |f  Unw      /      ishing  days  of  the  lyceum,  and 

V  •  •/        ke  *s  sa^  to  ^ave  lectured  more 

\  than  a  thousand  times. 

xij*  *K>/''/'^  "His   first  books  were  his 

'  Essays  and  Reviews '  in  two 

EDWIN    PERCY    WHIPPLE.  . .  . 

volumes,    published    in    1848, 

made  up  of  several  lectures  and  critical  articles  originally  con- 
tributed to  reviews  and  magazines.  The  next  year  his  '  Litera- 
ture and  Life '  appeared ;  then  after  an  interval  of  seventeen 
years  his  '  Character  and  Characteristic  Men ' ;  next,  in  1869, 
his  l  Literature  of  the  Age  of  Elizabeth/  which  competent 
critics  predicted  would  live  as  the  best  writing  of  its  kind  yet 
done  in  America.  Then  came  '  Success  and  its  Conditions  ? ; 
and  after  his  death,  'American  Literature  and  Other  Papers/ 
including  his  admirable  survey  of  our  literature  through  the 


OVER  BEACON  HILL. 


273 


first  century  of  the  republic;  and  < Recollections  of  Eminent 
Men/  Whipple  was  remarkable  especially  for  the  delicacy 
and  strength  of  his  analysis.  His  essay  on  George  Eliot  drew 
from  her  the  exclamation,  <  This  man  understands  me.' 


FACSIMILE    OF    E.    P.    WHIPPLE'S    MANUSCRIPT. 

"  In  Whipple  was  united  geniality  of  disposition  with 
intellectual  force,  so  that  his  literary  friendships  were  many 
and  strong.  His  daily  conversation  sparkled  with  wit  and 
clever  sayings.  His  '  Sunday  evenings,'  when  he  was  at  home 


274  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

to  his  friends,  were  occasions  of  rare  charm  to  those  whose 
good  fortune  it  was  to  cross  the  threshold.  His  working  study 
was  a  pleasant  room  on  the  second  floor,  delightfully  cluttered 
with  books.  He  lived  in  this  house  for  nearly  forty  years,  and 
drew  to  its  bookish  parlors  the  best  elements  of  the  intellectual 
life  of  Boston  during  that  period,  while  few  persons  of  literary 
distinction  from  abroad  failed  to  seek  him  out  here  —  this 
critic  whose  abilities  in  his  youth  had  been  recognized  •  by 
Macaulay,  and  who  lived  to  attain  the  position  of  the  fore- 
most purely  critical  American  writer." 

Down  the  hill  again,  we  passed,  on  the  slope,  "the  little 
house  in  Pinckney  Street "  (No.  84)  in  which  T.  B.  Aldrich  and 
his  wife  first  "  set  up  housekeeping "  in  the  "  light  of  their 
honeymoon,"  upon  their  coming  to  Boston  in  1867.  And  I 
recalled  that  here  Longfellow's  "  Hanging  of  the  Crane "  was 
inspired,  as  Aldrich  has  so  pleasantly  related : 

"  One  morning  in  the  spring  of  1867  Mr.  Longfellow  came  to  the  little 
house  in  Pinckney  Street.  ...  As  we  lingered  a  moment  at  the  dining- 
room  door,  Mr.  Longfellow  turning  to  me  said,  'Ah,  Mr.  Aldrich,  your 
small  round  table  will  not  always  be  closed.  By  and  by  you  will  find  new 
young  faces  clustering  about  it  ;  as  years  go  by,  leaf  after  leaf  will  be 
added  until  the  time  comes  when  the  young  guests  will  take  flight,  one  by 
one,  to  build  nests  of  their  own  elsewhere.  Gradually  the  long  table  will 
shrink  to  a  circle  again,  leaving  two  old  people  sitting  there  alone  together. 
This  is  the  story  of  life,  the  sweet  and  pathetic  poem  of  the  fireside. 
Make  an  idyl  of  it.  I  give  the  idea  to  you.'  Several  months  afterward  I 
received  a  note  from  Mr.  Longfellow  in  which  he  expressed  a  desire  to  use 
this  motif  in  case  I  had  done  nothing  in  the  matter.  The  theme  was  one 
particularly  adapted  to  his  sympathetic  handling,  and  out  of  it  grew  '  The 
Hanging  of  the  Crane.'  " 

"  This  was  the  poem,"  I  added  as  a  postscript,  "  which 
brought  Longfellow  the  tidy  sum  of  three  thousand  dollars, 
—  fifteen  dollars  a  line,  —  from  Robert  Bonner,  for  the  right 
to  its  publication  in  his  New  York  Ledger ;  while  in  book 
form,  through  Longfellow's  regular  publishers,  it  speedily 
earned  a  larger  sum  in  royalties." 


OVER  BEACON  HILL.  275 

Mention  was  also  made  of  the  pleasant  fact  that  from  his 
little  Pinckney-Street  house  Aldrich  sent  forth  that  inimitable 
"  Story  of  a  Bad  Boy,"  which  we  followed  in  our  visit  to  his 
beloved  "  Old  Town  by  the  Sea." 

Nearby,  on  the  same  hill-slope,  we  took  note  of  the  home 
of  Alice  Brown  (born  in  Hampton  Falls,  N.H.,  1857-),  poet, 
and  writer  of  cleverly  wrought  stories  of  New  England  life,  as 
shown  in  her  "  Meadow  Grass,"  "  The  Day  of  His  Youth,"  and 
later  volumes ;  working  to  some  extent  in  the  rare  field  which 
Sarah  Orne  Jewett  has  opened  so  finely. 


XVI. 

IN  NEWER   BOSTON. 

Charles  Street  homes  of  Aldrich,  Fields,  and  Holmes.  — A  side  note  about 
Ponkapog.  — The  library  in  the  Fields  house.  — Holmes's  work  in  his 
Charles-Street  house.  —  As  a  lecturing  professor.  —  His  career  re- 
viewed. —  His  earlier  home  on  Montgomery  Place.  — Where  the 
"Autocrat"  papers  were  written.  —  Stories  of  notable  poems. — 
Holmes's  last  home  on  Beacon  Street,  water  side.  — His  closing  years 
and  gentle  death.  —  Home  of  Julia  Ward  Howe.  —  Story  of  the  "  Bat- 
tle Hymn  of  the  Republic."  — Other  "  Back  Bay  "  literary  homes.  — 
Edward  Everett  Hale.  — Edwin  Lassetter  Bynner.  — Brook  Farm.  — 
Lindsay  Swift. 

AT  the  foot  of  Beacon  Hill  we  turned  into  Charles  Street, 
northward,  to  see  the  old  houses  of  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  and 
James  T.  Fields  ;  then  returning  southward  to  Beacon  Street, 
we  entered  the  "  Back  Bay  "  quarter,  the  modern  West  End  of 
Boston,  built  entirely  upon  "  made  lands "  where  formerly  a 
great  bay  backed  from  the  river  along  the  Charles-Street  line. 

"  Once,"  I  observed  as  we  were  walking  along  Charles 
Street,  "this  now  unlovely  thoroughfare  was  beautified  by 
noble  trees  and  had  a  well-bred  air.  Holmes  and  Fields,  as 
we  shall  see,  were  close  neighbors;  and  latterly,  while  the 
street  yet  retained  its  literary  flavor,  Aldrich  took  a  house 
opposite  them."  Since  we  were  walking  on  the  east  side  we 
came  first  to  the  Aldrich  house  (No.  131).  "To  this  house 
Aldrich  moved  from  Pinckney  Street,"  I  remarked,  "  and  it  was 
associated  with  much  of  his  work  through  the  decade  of  1871 
to  1881.  The  library  was  the  back  room  of  the  second  floor ; 
the  retired  study  was  above  stairs.  Aldrich  moved  back  to 
The  Hill,  —  taking  his  statelier  Mount  Vernon  Street  house,  — 

276 


IN  NEWER  BOSTON.  277 

in  1884,  after  a  two  years'  residence  at  Ponkapog,  celebrated  in 
the  title  of  his  sketches  of  travel,  <  From  Ponkapog  to  Pesth.' " 

"  And  where  is  Ponkapog  ?  "  asked  Percy.  "  Is  it  really  a 
« real  place '  ?  " 

"  Indeed  it  is.  A  charming  spot,  rural  and  secluded,  though 
not  far  from  the  city,  set  by  the  beautiful  Blue  Hills  of  Milton. 
Aldrich's  own  sketch 
of  it  is  exact:  'After 
its  black  bass  and  wild 
duck  and  teal,  soli- 
tude is  the  chief  staple 
of  Ponkapog.  .  .  . 
The  nearest  railway 
station  (Heaven  be 
praised !)  is  two  miles 
distant,  and  the  seclu- 
sion is  without  a  flaw. 
Ponkapog  has  one  mail 
a  day ;  two  mails  a 
day  would  render  the 
place  uninhabitable.' 
The  Ponkapog  home 
was  an  ancient  farm 
house,  which  Aldrich 
remodeled  and  fitted 

P      ,    ,  ,  ,  JAMES    T.    FIELDS. 

most  comfortably  and 

artistically,  producing  the  cosiest  of  literary  homes  and  work- 
shops. Fortunate  was  the  guest  who  was  entertained  within 
its  aged  walls." 

We  now  crossed  to  the  Fields  house  (No.  148),  and  Percy's 
interest  was  freshly  kindled  when  he  heard  that  this  continues 
to  be  a  literary  home,  for  Mrs.  Annie  Fields,  the  publisher's 
widow,  herself  a  maker  of  good  books,  still  abides  here  through 
the  winter  seasons,  and  with  her  Sarah  Orne  Jewett.  No  more 
inviting  literary  interior  was  enjoyed  by  Percy  on  this  pilgrim- 


278 


LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 


age.  In  the  library  remain  many  of  Fields' s  treasures.  His 
collection  of  books,  and  souvenirs  of  famous  writers,  was,  in 
some  respects,  one  of  the  rarest  of  his  day  in  Boston.  He 
loved  to  show  off  to  the  appreciative  visitor  his  great  shelf-full 
of  volumes,  in  tasteful  bindings,  composed  of  the  original  man- 
uscripts of  works  by  Dickens,  Thackeray,  "Whittier,  Hawthorne, 
—  the  full  manuscript  of  "  The  Scarlet  Letter "  as  it  went  to 
the  printers,  —  Longfellow,  and  others.  In  the  dining-room 


LIBRARY   OF   JAMES    T     FIELDS. 

has  been  many  a  brilliant  feast ;  in  the  drawing-room,  with  its 
western  windows  looking  out,  over  the  garden,  upon  the  Charles 
River,  many  a  fine  literary  gathering.  Dickens,  upon  his 
memorable  American  visits,  was  at  home  in  this  house.  So  was 
Thackeray.  A  wide  hospitality  was  exercised  all  through  the 
quarter  century  of  Fields's  life  here, —  from  1857  till  his  death. 
And,  as  Dr.  Bartol  has  expressed  it  in  his  "portrait-eulogy," 
he  "  radiated  far  and  near  a  large  and  general  good  will." 


IN  NEWER  BOSTON.  279 

The  Holmes  house  (No.  164)  was  not  so  interesting,  for  it 
has  been  transformed  since  Holmes  moved  from  it,  and  its  lit- 
erary flavor  faded  with  his  going.  Still,  as  his  home  for  twelve 
years  through  the  period  during  which  he  produced  many  not- 
able works,  it  fascinated  Percy,  dismantled  though  it  was. 
It  was  here  that  he  wrote  his  second  "  Breakfast-Table  "  papers 
—  the  "  Prof  essor  at  the  Breakfast  Table";  his  two  novels, 
"Elsie  Venner"  and  "The  Guardian  Angel";  his  stirring 
poems  of  the  war  times ;  that  classic  of  our  war  literature, 
"  My  Hunt  After  the  Captain,"  -  —  the  narrative  of  his  search 
for  the  soldier-son,  who,  wounded  at  the  battle  of  Ball's  Bluff 
in  1862,  lived  to  fight  and  to  suffer  more  wounds  another  day 
and  in  after  time  to  become  chief  justice  of  Massachusetts ; 
numerous  verses  of  occasion,  and  "  Dorothy  Q."  Percy  gazed 
up  at  the  first  floor  windows  out  of  which  "  the  Autocrat "  used 
to  look  from  the  pleasant  down-stairs  study,  and  fancied  the 
kindly  eyes  beaming  down  upon  him. 

"  The  twelve  years  of  Holmes's  life  here,"  I  stated,  since 
Percy  asked  for  dates,  "  were  the  years  between  1859  and 
1871 :  busy  years,  for,  along  with  his  literary  work  he  was 
part  of  this  time  traveling  about  the  country  as  a  favorite 
lyceum  lecturer  on  English  poets  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
and  was  delivering  regularly  his  medical  lectures  in  the 
Harvard  Medical  School,  as  he  had  been  doing  since  the  late 
forties.  The  latter  work  was  in  its  way  as  important  as  his 
writing.  He  held  the  Parkman  professorship  of  anatomy  for 
the  long  period  of  thirty-five  years,  in  that  time  delivering  a 
succession  of  lectures  which  ranked  high  for  their  learning  as 
well  as  their  diction.  And  when  at  length,  in  1882,  he  retired, 
becoming  professor  emeritus,  the  students  whose  rare  privilege 
it  had  been  to  hear  him,  gave  him  a  loving  cup,  inscribed  fit- 
tingly with  his  own  lines :  f  Love  Bless  Thee,  Joy  Crown 
Thee,  God  Speed  Thy  Career/  Of  him  as  the  lecturing  pro- 
fessor we  have  this  true  picture,  by  that  clever  Scotsman,  David 
Macrae :  — 


280  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

"  '  Holmes  is  a  plain  little  dapper  man,  his  short  hair  brushed  down 
like  a  boy's,  but  turning  gray  now  [this  was  in  1863],  a  trifle  of  furzy 
hair  under  his  ears  ;  a  powerful  jaw  and  a  thick  strong  underlip  which 
gives  decision  to  his  look,  with  a  dash  of  pertness.  ...  He  reads  with  a 
sharp  percussive  articulation,  is  very  deliberate  and  formal  at  first,  but 
becomes  more  animated  as  he  goes  on.  ...  He  enlivens  his  lecture  with 
numerous  jokes  and  brilliant  sallies  of  wit,  and  at  every  point  hitches  up 
his  head,  looks  through  his  glasses  at  his  audience  as  he  finishes  his 
sentence,  and  then  shuts  his  mouth  pertly  with  his  underlip  as  if  he  said, 
44  There,  laugh  at  that  I  "  » 

"  He  began  professional  life,  you  know,  as  a  regular  prac- 
ticing physician,  after  study  abroad,  some  time  having  pre- 
viously been  spent  at  Harvard  in  law  studies  which  were  not 
to  his  liking.  Though  he  retired  from  practice  within  ten 
years,  he  continued  steadily  to  keep  step  with  the  progress  of 
the  profession.  He  was  called  a  fashionable  physician,  but  he 
was  rather  the  good  physician.  At  first  his  tendency  to  versi- 
fication, —  he  was  already  famed  as  a  poet  when  he  began  as  a 
doctor,  —  and  his  merry  humor,  told  against  him.  It  was 
thought  that  a  doctor  and  a  poet  could  not  be  combined  suc- 
cessfully in  one  person :  as  to-day  a  lawyer  given  to  poetizing 
is  looked  upon  askance.  When  he  was  quoted  as  announcing 
gayly  to  his  friends  that  in  his  profession  of  practitioner 
'  fevers  would  be  thankfully  received '  precise  Bostonians  were 
dismayed  if  not  shocked  at  such  trifling  with  serious  matters. 
He  was  thirty-one  when  he  put  out  his  doctor's  sign,  and  then 
began  his  lifelong  identification  with  Boston. 

"  That  was  in  1840,  the  year  of  his  marriage  to  Amelia 
Jackson,  a  daughter  of  Judge  Charles  Jackson  of  Boston, 
associate  justice  of  the  Supreme  Judicial  Court  of  Massachu- 
setts, of  which  in  after  years  their  son,  'the  Captain,'  as  we 
have  seen,  became  the  chief.  Theirs  was  a  fortunate  and  a 
happy  union  long  lasting.  As  his  biographer,  John  T.  Morse, 
says,  she  was  an  ' ideal  wife'  for  him.  Their  life  in  the 
Charles-Street  home  was  serene  and  kindly.  In  their  time  it 
had  a  pleasing  outlook  at  the  rear  over  the  river  and  the  then 


IN  NEWER  BOSTON.  281 

open  hills  beyond.  One  late  August  day  the  doctor  wrote  to 
his  neighbor,  Fields,  '  We  sit  an  hour  or  so  after  tea  at  the  west 
window  to  enjoy  the  recollections  of  sunset  —  which  is  pre- 
mature nowadays  —  and  dig  up  the  roots  of  remembrances 
that  flowered  and  went  to  seed  in  the  old  summers  and 
autumns/ 

"  The  Autocrat's  earlier  Boston  homes  ?  All  vestige  of 
them  disappeared  years  ago.  He  lived  the  longest  period  in 
the  house  which  he  describes  in  the  Autocrat  papers  as  the 
Professor's  house,  in  that  passage  recounting  one  of  his  walks 
with  the  Schoolmistress  (which"  I  read  from  my  note-book) :  — 

**  *  We  came  opposite  the  head  of  a  place  or  court  running  eastward 
from  the  main  street.  —  Look  down  there,  —  !  said. — My  friend,  the 
Professor,  lived  in  that  house  at  the  left  hand  next  the  further  corner, 
for  years  and  years.  He  died  out  of  it,  the  other  day.  — Died  ? — said 
the  Schoolmistress.  —  Certainly,  —  said  I.  —  We  die  out  of  houses  just  as 
we  die  out  of  our  bodies.  A  commercial  smash  kills  a  hundred  men's 
homes  for  them,  as  a  railroad  smash  kills  their  mortal  frames  and  drives 
out  the  immortal  tenants.  Men  sicken  of  houses  until  at  last  they  quit 
them,  as  the  soul  leaves  the  body  when  it  is  tired  of  its  infirmities.  .  .  . 
The  Professor  lived  in  that  house  a  long  time  —  not  twenty  years,  but 
pretty  near  it.  When  he  entered  that  door  two  shadows  glided  over  the 
threshold  ;  five  lingered  in  the  doorway  when  he  passed  through  it  for 
the  last  time,  —  and  one  of  the  shadows  was  claimed  by  its  owner  to  be 
larger  than  his  own.  What  changes  he  saw  in  that  quiet  place  !  Death 
rained  through  every  roof  but  his ;  children  came  into  life,  grew  to 
maturity,  wedded,  faded  away,  threw  themselves  away  ;  the  whole  drama 
of  life  was  played  in  that  stock  company's  theater  of  a  dozen  houses, 
one  of  which  was  his,  and  no  deep  sorrow  or  severe  calamity  ever  entered 
his  dwelling.  Peace  be  to  those  walls,  forever,  —  the  Professor  said,  — 
for  the' many  pleasant  years  he  has  passed  within  them.' 

"  This  quiet  court  was  then  Montgomery  Place,  opening 
opposite  the  old  Granary  Burying-ground.  Now  it  is  Bosworth 
Street,  a  prosaic  thoroughfare  with  one  picturesque  feature,  — 
the  rough  stone  steps  at  its  end  leading  down  to  the  ancient 
narrow  cross  street  into  which  it  empties.  The  doctor  lived 
here  for  eighteen  years,  —  from  1841,  the  year  after  his  jnar- 


282  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

riage,  till  his  removal  to  Charles  Street,  —  and  here  all  his 
children  were  born. 

"  Here  the  Autocrat  papers  were  in  large  part  written,  dur- 
ing the  first  year  of  the  Atlantic  Monthly,  starting  with  its  first 
number  in  November,  1857.  You  are  familiar  with  the  story  ? 
Holmes  has  told  it  in  the  preface  (or  the  Autocrat's  autobiog- 
raphy) to  the  papers  in  book  form :  how  they  were  started  in 
two  numbers  of  Buckingham's  New  England  Magazine  in  the 
winter  of  1831-'32,  and  then  were  dropped ;  and  how  twenty- 
five  years  afterward,  when  the  Atlantic  was  projected  and  he 
was  asked  to  write  for  it,  the  recollection  of  these  productions 
of  his  t  uncombed  literary  boyhood '  suggested  the  thought  that 
it  would  be  a  curious  experiment  *  to  shake  the  same  bough 
again  and  see  if  the  ripe  fruit  were  better  or  worse  than  the 
early  windfalls.'  This  explains  the  whimsically  abrupt  open- 
ing of  the  first  Atlantic  paper,  <  I  was  just  going  to  say,  when  I 
was  interrupted/  —  a  quarter  of  a  century  before. 

"  The  experiment  proved  a  most  successful  one,  for  it  fixed 
firm  the  reputation  of  its  author  as  the  first  of  American  essay- 
ists in  the  lighter  vein,  and  the  maker  of  a  distinctly  new  depar- 
ture in  literature.  It  is  interesting  to  note  that  among  the 
poems  so  cleverly  worked  into  the  text  are  those  which  have 
contributed  most  to  Holmes's  fame,  as  '  The  Promise,'  <  The 
Chambered  Nautilus,'  with  its  swelling  note  :  — 

'  Build  thee  more  stately  mansions,  O  my  soul, 
As  the  swift  seasons  roll ! 
Leave  thy  low-vaulted  past ! 
Let  each  new  temple,  nobler  than  the  last, 
Shut  thee  from  Heaven  with  a  dome  more  vast, 

Till  thou  at  length  art  free, 
Leaving  thine  outgrown  shell  by  life's  unresting  sea  ! ' 

—  '  The  Living  Temple/  '  The  Deacon's  Masterpiece,  or  the 
Wonderful  One-Hoss  Shay/  '  Contentment/  with  the  familial- 
worldly  lines :  — 


IN  NEWER  BOSTON.  283 

'Little  I  ask,  my  wants  are  few; 

I  only  wish  a  hut  of  stone 
(A  very  plain  brown  stone  will  do)  — 

That  1  may  call  my  own  — 
And  close  at  hand  is  such  a  one 

In  yonder  street  that  fronts  the  sun.' 

—  <  Parson  Turell's  Legacy,'  and  the  much  quoted  <  The  Old 
Man's  Dream,'  which  I  dare  say  was  in  your  school  Reader. 

"  And  of  these  earlier  poems  Holmes  was  fondest.  (  If  you 
will  remember  me  by  "  The  Chambered  Nautilus,"  or  "  The 
Promise,"  or  "  The  Living  Temple,"  -  —  he  once  wrote  some  school 
children  of  Cincinnati  who  had  been  committing  to  memory 
several  of  his  poems,  —  ( your  memories  will  be  a  monument  I 
shall  think  more  of  than  any  of  bronze  or  marble.' 

"  '  The  Last  Leaf,'  also  among  his  favorites  and  perhaps 
the  most  widely  popular,  was  written  at  an  earlier  period.  For 
this  poem  'good  Abraham  Lincoln,'  the  doctor  took  pride  in 
noting,  had  a  great  liking,  and  repeated  it  from  memory.  It 
took  the  fancy  of  the  fastidious  Edgar  Allan  Poe,  who  made 
an  autograph  copy  of  it ;  and  it  appeared  in  a  French  version. 
The  famous  '  Old  Ironsides,'  which  countless  schoolboys  have 
declaimed,  was  produced  when  Holmes  was  a  law  student  at 
Cambridge  in  1830.  It  was  cast  at  white  heat  upon  reading 
of  the  threatened  breaking-up  of  the  Constitution  by  the  Navy 
Department  as  useless,  and  was  hurried  to  the  Boston  Adver- 
tiser^ where  it  appeared  the  following  morning.  Copied  by 
newspapers  throughout  the  country,  it  roused  public  senti- 
ment, and  saved  the  grand  old  ship. 

"  It  was  to  <  The  Last  Leaf '  and  <  The  Old  Man's  Dream,' 
by  the  way,  that-  the  London  Punch  harked  back  in  its  fine 
tribute  to  Holmes  upon  his  death  at  eighty-five :  — 

"  «  "The  Last  Leaf  !  "     Can  it  be  true 
We  have  turned  it,  and  on  you, 
Friend  of  all  ? 


284  LITERARY   PILGRIMAGES. 

That  the  years  at  last  have  power  ? 
That  life's  foliage  and  flower 
Fade  and  fall  ? 


Of  sweet  singers  the  most  sane, 
Of  keen  wits  the  most  humane, 

Wide,  yet  clear. 
Like  the  blue  above  us  bent 
Giving  sense  and  sentiment 

Each  its  sphere. 

With  a  manly  breadth  of  soul 
And  a  fancy  quaint  and  droll, 

Ripe  and  mellow. 
With  a  virile  power  of  hit, 
Finished  scholar,  poet,  wit, 

And  good  fellow  ! 

Sturdy  patriot,  and  yet 
True  world's  citizen  !     Regret 

Dims  our  eyes 

As  we  turn  each  well-thumbed  leaf; 
Yet  a  glory  'midst  our  grief 

Will  arise. 

Years  your  spirit  could  not  tame, 
And  they  will  not  dim  your  fame  ; 

England  joys 

In  your  songs,  all  strength  and  ease, 
And  the  "dreams"  you  "wrote  to  please 

Gray -haired  boys."  ' 

"  '  A  Mother's  Secret/  *  St.  Anthony  the  Reformer/  '  Under 
the  Violets/  'The  Crooked  Path/  and  'The  Boys'  were  among 
the  poems  incorporated  in  the  Professor  papers.  '  The  Boys ' 
was  the  best  of  his  forty  and  more  verses  written  for  the  re- 
unions of  his  class  at  Harvard;  —  that  famous  class  of  1829, 
which  included  Benjamin  Pierce,  in  after  life  the  mathemati- 
cian and  astronomer ;  James  Freeman  Clarke  and  Chandler  Rob- 
bins,  the  Boston  ministers ;  William  Henry  Channing,  nephew 


IN  NEWER  BOSTON. 


285 


of  the  great  Charming,  himself  ranking  high  in  literature; 
George  T.  Bigelow,  judge  of  the  Massachusetts  Supreme  Court ; 
Benjamin  K,.  Curtis,  justice  of  the  United  States  Supreme 
Bench ;  and  Samuel  F.  Smith,  who  wrote  <  America/  Holmes's 
lyric,  so  much  quoted  and  made  a  popular  song, '  No  Time  Like 
the  Old  Time/ 
was  written  in 
1865, —  of  the 
Charles-Street 
home  period." 

We  had  been 
strolling  down 
Beacon  Street  on 
the  "Back  Bay," 
and  were  come 
before  Holmes's 
last  town  house 
(No.  296),  on  the 
favored  water 
side,  —  the  verita- 
ble "brown  stone" 
of  his  "Content- 
ment" wish, —  to 
which  he  moved 
from  Charles 
Street. 

"  This  house 
he  greatly  en- 
joyed," I  remarked,  while  we  stood  at  the  door  awaiting  the 
response  to  the  bell,  "as  that  letter  of  his  to  Motley,  which 
Morse  quotes  in  the  Life,  attests : 

"  '  We  have  really  a  charming  house,  and  as  I  turn  my  eyes  to  the  left 
from  this  paper  I  seem  to  look  out  on  all  creation,  Bunker  Hill  and  the 
spires  of  Cambridge,  and  Mount  Auburn,  and  the  wide  estuary  commonly 
called  Charles  River  —  we  poor  Bostonians  come  to  think  at  last  that  there 


LAST   HOME   OF   OLIVER    WENDELL    HOLMES. 


286 


LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 


is  nothing  like  it  in  the  orbis  terrarum.  —  I  suppose  it  sounds  to  one  who 
is  away,  like  the  Marchioness  with  her  orange-peel  and  water.'  " 

In  this  house  it  was  observed  that  the  Autocrat's  study  —  or 
library-study  as  it  was  termed  —  was  on  the  second  floor  back : 
a  large  room  with  the  view  over  the  river  through  broad  bay 
windows.  As  it  appeared  in  his  time,  books  filled  the  shelves 
against  the  four  walls,  —  that  part  of  his  library  which  he  most 
used  as  his  literary  tools,  —  while  other  portions  of  his  collec- 
tion were  scattered  over  the  house.  The  writing-table  stood 
near  the  middle  of  the  apartment,  and  roomy  chairs  were  on  either 
side  of  the  deep  open  grate,  suggestive  of  comfort  for  guest  and 
host. 

"  This,"  Percy  was  told,  "  was  the  Mecca  of  Holmes's 
army  of  admirers,  of  men  and  women  of  distinction  and  those 
striving  for  distinction,  coming  from  everywhere.  He  was 

tolerant  of  all  who  gained 
entrance,  ever  the  genial, 
kindly  host,  but  with  a 
happy  knack  of  edging  off 
the  bores,  so  gently  and 
cleverly  that  they  found 
themselves  on  the  street 
side  of  the  outer  door  with- 
out realizing  that  they  had 
been,  though  graciously, 
most  effectively  bowed  out. 
"The  study  here  was 
identified  with  'The  Poet 
of  the  Breakfast  Table/  the 
last  of  the  inimitable  Breakfast-table  series,  which  appeared 
in  1873;  and  'Over  the  Tea  Cups,'  the  last  of  all  his  engaging 
table-talk,  written  in  his  old  age  after  his  return  from  that 
memorable  summer  in  London,  in  1886,  when  he  enjoyed  the 
merry  round  of  distinguished  courtesies,  in  part  recounted  in 
his  'Hundred  Days.'  While  living  here  he  published  those 


OLIVER   WENDELL   HOLMES. 


IN  NEWER  BOSTON. 


287 


prime  favorites  of  the  centennial  celebrations,  (  A  Ballad  of  the 
Boston  Tea  Party/  and  '  Grandmother's  Story  of  the  Bunker 


FACSIMILE   OF    HOLMES'S    MANUSCRIPT. 


Hill   Battle/     And   here  was  written,  or  shaped,   'The  Iron 
Gate,'  which  one  naturally  associates  with  Tennyson's  '  Cross- 


288  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

ing  the  Bar,'  though  it  is  quite  different,  —  his  response  at  the 
Birthday  Breakfast  given  him  on  his  seventieth  anniversary  by 
the  Atlantic  folk,  —  than  which  no  cheerier  or  tenderer  picture 
of  serene  old  age  is  found  in  our  literature. 

"After  he  was  eighty  he  sent  hence  his  rollicking  'The 
Broomstick  Train :  or  the  Return  of  the  Witches/  which  may 
well  be  called  ( The  Song  of  the  Trolley-car,'  brim  full  of  his 
old-time  wit  and  fancy. 

"  When  Dr.  Holmes  came  to  die,  it  was  in  his  chair  <  pain- 
lessly as  so  humane  a  man  well  deserved  to  make  his  escape 
out  of  life,5  as  Mr.  Morse,  with  fine  sentiment,  notes  in  the 
Life.  Only  a  few  days  before  his  death  he  was  taking  his 
usual  walks  out-of-doors  in  the  sunshine,  and  on  the  very  day 
of  his  passing  he  was  up  and  about  the  house.  The  day  of  his 
death  was  the  seventh  of  October,  1894.  Two  days  later  he 
was  buried  from  Old  King's  Chapel." 

We  extended  our  walk  over  the  "  Back  Bay  "  to  pass  a  few 
modern  literary  homes. 

On  the  opposite  side  of  Beacon  Street  I  pointed  out  (No. 
241)  the  later  town  home  of  Mrs.  Julia  Ward  Howe  (born  in 
New  York  City,  1819  — ),  whence  in  her  old  age  she  sent  out  her 
pleasant  "  Reminiscences,"  and  where  her  gracious  hospitality 
has  been  dispensed  to  many  of  the  literary  guild,  who  have  found 
charm  in  her  ever  brilliant  conversation  and  her  scintillating 
wit.  Her  "  Battle  Hymn,"  about  which  Percy  asked,  was  writ- 
ten, I  stated,  when  Mrs.  Howe's  home  was  in  Boston  (on  little 
Boylston  Place,  opening  opposite  the  Common),  but  during  a 
visit  to  the  army  about  Washington,  in  1861,  in  company  with 
her  minister,  James  Freeman  Clarke.  As  she  tells  the  story, 
one  day  they  were  invited  to  attend  a  review  of  troops  at 
some  distance  from  the  Capitol.  While  they  were  watching 
the  maneuvers,  a  sudden  movement  of  the  army  necessitated 
immediate  action  by  these  troops.  The  review  was  discontinued, 
and  they  saw  a  detachment  gallop  to  the  assistance  of  a  small 
body  of  our  men  who  were  in  imminent  danger  of  being  sur- 


IN  NEWER  BOSTON.  289 

rounded  and  cut  off  from  retreat.  The  return  of  her  party  to 
the  city  was  slow,  for  the  troops  nearly  filled  the  road.  To 
beguile  the  rather  tedious  drive  she  and  her  friends  sang  from 
time  to  time  snatches  of  the  popular  army  songs,  concluding 

with 

"John  Brown's  body  lies  a  mouldering  in  the  grave; 

His  soul  is  marching  on." 

The  soldiers  applauded  the  singing  with  cries  "Good  for 
you ! "  and  Dr.  Clarke  remarked,  "  Why  don't  you  write  some 
good  words  for  that  stirring  tune  ?  " 

In  the  middle  of  the  following  night  Mrs.  Howe  was  awak- 
ened with  the  words  of  a  hymn  singing  in  her  mind.  Getting 
up,  she  groped  for  a  light  and  hurriedly  scribbled  the  lines  on 
a  chance  bit  of  paper  lest  they  should  escape  her.  Then  she 
retired  again,  and  slept  soundly  till  morning.  The  words  of 
the  "Battle  Hymn,"  with  but  a  few  slight  changes,  are  the 
words  she  transcribed  that  night.  It  was  published  anony- 
mously in  the  Atlantic,  and  made  no  stir  at  the  moment. 
Some  time  after,  Chaplain  McCabe  in  a  lecture  related  an 
incident  of  Libby  Prison :  when  the  prisoners,  upon  hearing 
that  a  battle  reported  to  them  as  a  Union  defeat  was  really  a 
victory,  made  the  prison  walls  ring  with  their  singing  of  a 
battle  hymn  by  an  unknown  author,  which  had  been  found  in 
a  stray  newspaper ;  and  he  repeated  the  thrilling  lines.  They 
were  those  of  Mrs.  Howe's.  This  was  the  touch  that  brought 
them  popularity.  The  authorship  was  made  known,  and  the 
hymn  became  at  once  a  leading  lyric  of  the  war. 

Farther  down,  again  on  the  "  water  side "  at  No.  392,  we 
passed  the  home  of  James  Ford  Rhodes  (born  in  Cleveland,  0., 
1848 — ),  the  historian,  whose  "  History  of  the  United  States 
from  the  Compromise  of  1850,"  through  the  Civil  War  period 
to  1885,  is  the  standard  of  its  class.  Turning  into  Fairfield 
Street,  was  seen,  at  No.  16,  the  home  of  John  T.  Morse,  writer 
of  sterling  biographies  (whose  life  of  Holmes  we  had  quoted), 
and  editor  of  the  "  American  Statesmen "  series  of  "  popular 


290  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

lives."  Farther  southward  we  came  upon  the  house  of  the 
Massachusetts  Historical  Society,  close  by  "  The  Fens,"  —  part 
of  the  city's  'chain  of  public  parks,  —  and  entering  this  build- 
ing, many  of  the  society's  treasures  were  shown  to  Percy  by 
the  genial  librarian  and  expert  in  Americana.  Then  we 
strolled  back  to  Copley  Square  and  revisited  the  famous  Public 
Library,  this  time  making  a  full  tour  of  the  various  depart- 
ments of  the  beautiful  structure.  Finally  we  took  a  "  Broom- 
stick train "  and  returned  by  "  The  Subway  "  to  our  starting 
point  down  town. 

As  we  were  comfortably  dining  at  the  Parker  House  after 
our  long  tramp,  I  remarked  that  this  hotel  covers  the  site  of 
the  home  of  Dr.  Holmes's  maternal  grandfather,  Oliver  Wen- 
dell, on  School  Street,  and  that  of  the  birthplace  of  Edward 
Everett  Hale  (bwn  1822—),  on  Tremont  Street. 

Thus  our  table  talk  turned  to  Hale's  good  life  and  work. 
"  He  gives  us  himself,"  I  observed,  "  most  pleasing  glimpses 
of  his  early  homes  in  the  autobiographical  '  Story  of  a  New 
England  Boyhood.'  The  home  life  in  the  second  house  to 
which  the  family  was  moved  when  Hale  was  a  little  fellow  of 
six  is  here  fully  pictured.  That  house  was  near  by,  —  in  Tre- 
mont Place,  which  opens  from  Beacon  Street  behind  the  great 
office  building  opposite  us.  It  remained  as  part  of  a  delight- 
fully old  fashioned  and  roomy  place  of  offices  till  only  a  year 
ago,  when  the  structure  made  way  for  a  modern  <  sky  scraper.7 
The  Tremont-Place  house  was  the  Hales'  home  till  young 
Edward  had  reached  eleven,  and  was  a  Latin  School  boy. 
Then  they  removed  to  Central  Court,  a  place  of  genteel  Boston 
dwellings  in  its  heyday,  which  once  opened  from  Washington 
Street  just  above  Summer  Street,  but  is  now  obliterated,  being 
built  over  by  a  great  retail  shop.  While  the  family  home  was 
here  the  boy  became  a  college  youth,  entering  Harvard  when 
he  was  but  thirteen.  After  his  graduation  he  became  a  teacher 
in  the  Latin  School  where  he  had  been  a  pupil ;  worked  on  his 
father's  newspaper ;  and  later  prepared  for  the  ministry.  He 


IN  NEWER  BOSTON. 


291 


was  licensed  to  preach  in  1842.  Four  years  later  he  was  set- 
tled in  Worcester.  Ten  years  later,  or  in  1856,  he  returned 
to  Boston,  becoming  minister  of  the  South  Congregational 
Church.  He  has  ever  since  remained  in  this  charge,  and 
ardently  associated  with  everything  of  good  report  in  his 
native  city. 

"  You  know  about  his  lineage  ?  On  the  paternal  side  he 
is  a  great  nephew  of  Captain  Nathan  Hale,  the  patriot  of 
the  Revolution,  hanged  as  a  spy,  after  uttering  those  memorable 


HOME    OF    EDWARD    EVERETT    HALE. 

(From  Hale's  "  The  Brick  Moon  and  Other  Stories."    Copyright,  1899, 
by  Little,  Brown  &  Company.) 


last  words,  <  I  only  regret  that  I  have  but  one  life  to  lose  for 
my  country.'  On  the  maternal  side  he  is  of  the  Everett  family, 
his  mother  having  been  a  sister  of  Edward .  Everett,  for  whom 
he  was  named.  His  father,  Nathan  Hale,  was  the  founder 
and  first  editor  of  the  Boston  Advertiser,  for  which  he  won  the 
honorable  title  of  '  the  Eespectable  Daily ' ;  and  he  was  a 
pioneer  in  the  introduction  of  the  railway  system. 

"Hale's  most  famous  stories  — '  The  Man  Without  a  Coun- 
try,' <  My  Double  and  How  He  Undid  Me,'  <  Ten  Times  One  is 


292  LITEEAEY  PILGRIMAGES. 

Ten/  <In  His  Name,'  <  The  Ingram  Papers/  <  Philip  Nolan's 
Friends '  —  were  all  written  here  in  Boston.  He  became  known 
and  recognized  as  foremost  among  American  writers  in  the 
art  of  short  story  writing,  a  third  of  a  century  ago,  and  he 
has  well  sustained  this  reputation.  Underlying  his  stories 
is  a  wholesome  morality,  and  each  teaches  a  lesson ;  but  the 
workmanship  is  so  clever,  the  touch  so  human,  and  the  execu- 
tion so  spirited  and  fascinating,  that  the  moral  and  the  lesson 
are  absorbed  unconsciously  —  but  none  the  less  absorbed. 

"  Of  all  his  works  none  had  such  a  vogue,  or  so  moved  the 
public,  as  his  '  Man  Without  a  Country.'     Coming  in  the  Civil 


EDWARD    EVERETT    HALE    IN    HIS    STUDY. 

(From  Kale's  "  Addresses  and  Essays."    Copyright,  1900,  by 

Little,  Brown  &  Company.) 

War  time,  published  anonymously,  with  all  the  air  of  a  sober 
narration  of  fact,  it  was  accepted  by  many  as  a  true  statement, 
and  was  profoundly  impressive ;  and  it  did  much  to  inspire  in 
the  public  mind  a  truer  devotion  to  the  flag  and  loyalty  to  the 
country.  His  <  Ten  Times  One  is  Ten/  with  the  hero's  motto, 
1  Look  up  and  not  down,  look  forward  and  not  backward,  look 
out  not  in,  and  lend  a  hand/  first  published  in  1870,  was  the 


IN  NEWER   BOSTON. 


293 


inspiration  not  only  of  the  numerous  '  Lend-a-Hand '  clubs  in 
the  land,  but  of  the  various  other  Christian  leagues  of  young 
people.  His  versatility  is  remarkable ;  his  industry  astonishing. 
At  the  celebration  of  his  seventieth  birthday,  when  the  number 
of  his  published  works  exceeded  eighty,  and  he  was  still  actively 
producing,  Dr.  Holmes  characterized  him  in  verse,  as  'The 
human  dynamo.7  Upon  his  eightieth  birthday  celebration, 
when  three  thousand  people  crowded  a  great  public  hall  to 
do  him  honor,  Senator  Hoar  styled  him  <the  representative 
and  incarnation  of  the  best  and  loftiest  Americanism.'  His 
home  for  years  has  been  in  the  Roxbury  district  (on  Highland 
Street),  in  a  large,  rambling,  old-time  house,  which  well  bents 
him.  His  study  there  is  a  veritable  literary  workshop." 

An  allusion  to   Dr.  Hale's    interest  in  historical  matters, 
especially  early  New  England  history,  led  me  to  speak  of  the 

younger  Boston  writer  upon m 

such  subjects,  Edwin  Las- 
setter  Bynner  (born  in 
Brooklyn,  N.  Y.,  1842— died 
in  Boston,  1893),  whose 
"  Agnes  Surriage  "  ranks,  in 
style  and  character,  with 
the  higher  type  of  histori- 
cal novels.  "Bynner,  as 
Hale  has  said,"  I  remarked, 
"  was  perfectly  informed 
in  the  history  of  New  Eng- 
land, and  had  '  a  gift  which 
hardly  any  one  else  has  had 
for  reproducing  the  broken 
lights  of  the  picture,  work- 
ing in,  with  his  insight,  de-  EDWIN  LASSETTER  BYNNER- 
tails  forgotten  by  most  writers;  in  a  word,  making  real  tht 
past.7  His  materials  were  gathered  with  painstaking  care,  with 
an  eye  for  accuracy  as  well  as  for  '  color.'  The  peculiar  old 


294  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

Marblehead  dialect  in  '  Agnes  Surriage/  for  example,  was  ob- 
tained through  visits,  with  a  friend,  to  the  older  fishermen 
there,  one  engaging  them,  in  easy  conversation,  while  the  other 
took  notes. 

"  Bynner  was  bred  to  the  law,  and  practiced  his  profession ; 
but  literature  was  his  real  vocation.  'Penelope's  Suitors/ 
published  in  1884,  after  running  as  a  serial  in  the  Atlantic, 
was  his  first  genuine  literary  success,  although  he  had  then 
published  two  novels,  '  Nimport/  and  '  The  Tritons,'  which  had 
been  well  received  by  discerning  readers.  '  Agnes  Surriage } 
appeared  in  1887,  and  was  at  once  favorably  compared  with 
Hawthorne's  work.  His  later  novels  included  '  The  Begum's 
Daughter/  his  most  serious  effort,  and  (  Zachary  Phips.'  He 
was  also  a  successful  short-story  writer.  Bynner's  father  was 
an  Englishman,  sometime  editor  of  an  inland  Massachusetts 
newspaper,  and  his  mother  was  of  an  old  Massachusetts  family, 
a  woman  of  fine  mental  powers ;  so  he  came  naturally  by  his 
literary  bent.  His  home  was  not  far  from  Hale's  —  in  the 
West  Roxbury  District. 

"  More  distant  in  the  West  Roxbury  District  lies  '  Brook 
Farm/  scene,  as  we  have  before  remarked,  of  Hawthorne's 
<  Blithedale  Romance/  —  the  place  where  in  1841-47  that 
group  of  men  and  women  of  high  ideals,  led  by  George  Ripley, 
instituted  the  '  Brook  Farm  Institute  of  Education  and  Agricul- 
ture/ and  made  their  unsuccessful  experiment  in  socialism. 
And  within  a  pleasant  walk  of  the  Farm  lives  Lindsay  Swift 
(born  in  Boston,  1865 — ),  the  author  of  the  story  of  this 
community,  in  his  '  Brook  Farm/  in  the  '  National  Studies  of 
American  Letters'  series;  also  accomplished  critic,  essayist, 
and  authority  on  Americana." 


XVII. 

CAMBRIDGE    REVISITED. 

Home  of  the  poet-painter,  Washington  Allston.  —  Lowell's  picture  of 
him.  —  Birthplace  of  Margaret  Fuller  Ossoli.  —  Story  of  her  career. 
—  The  'Dial.'  —  Home  of  Louis  Agassiz.  —  His  Cambridge  life  and 
work.  —  Latter  home  of  Jared  Sparks.  —  Where  he  wrote  his  his- 
tories.—  Old  "Professors'  Row."  —  Home  and  study  of  Francis  J. 
Child.  —  His  classic.  —  Charles  Eliot  Norton  at  "  Shady  Hill."  —  The 
Palfrey  Place.  —  Palfrey's  public  and  literary  life.  —  Birthplace  of 
T.  W.  Higginson.  —  His  literary  and  reform  work.  —  Site  of  Holmes's 
Birthplace.  — The  "  Gambrel-roofed  house"  and  its  memories.  —  In 
the  old  church  yard.  — John  Holmes. 

OUR  Cambridge  pilgrimage  occupied  but  a  short  day,  for 
the  points  visited  were  all  within  the  compass  of  an  easy  walk 
(as  our  walks  went),  and  we  passed  the  university  buildings 
in  quick  review,  they  being  familiar  to  Percy  from  his  pre- 
vious pilgrimage  to  the  cit^.  So,  too,  were  several  of  its 
distinctively  literary  landmarks  known  to  him  ;  but  devoting 
ourselves  exclusively  to  these  features,  we  saw  much  more 
than  before,  and  made  more  intimate  and  definite  acquaintance 
with  the  purely  literary  side  of  Cambridge. 

We  went  out  by  trolley  car  and  disembarked  at  Qirincy 
Square  by  the  college  grounds  where  I  had  planned  that  our 
walk  should  begin. 

On  the  way  out,  while  we  were  riding  through  "  The 
Port  "  —  the  local  abbreviation  for  Cambridgeport,  —  I  pointed 
down  Magazine  Street,  at  the  left  of  us,  indicating  in  a 
general  way  the  site  of  the  last  home  and  studio  of  the  poet- 
painter  Washington  Allston  (born  in  Charleston,  S.C.,  1779  — 
died  in  Cambridge,  1843).  Above,  at  our  right,  was  Prospect 

295 


296  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

Street,  in  which  just  off  the  main  street  stood  the  "  Cambridge 
Port  Private  Grammar  School "  where  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes 
got  his  preliminary  schooling  along  with  other  favored  Cam- 
bridge boys,  and  with  that  remarkable  Cambridge  girl,  Sarah 
Margaret  Fuller  (Ossoli)  (born  1810  —died  1850). 

Speaking  of  Allston,  I  remarked  that  he  came  to  live  in 
Cambridge  at  the  time  of  his  second  marriage  in  1830,  and 
this  remained  his  home  and  work  place  till  his  death.  "  His 
second  wife,"  I  went  on,  "  was  the  poet  Dana's  sister,  and 
cousin  to  his  first  wife,  William  Ellery  Channing's  sister  Ann, 
who  had  been  dead  for  twenty  years.  When  a  youth  in 
Newport  he  became  acquainted  with  the  Channing  family,  and 
coming  to  Cambridge  as  a  student  he  had  Channing  as  a 
college  mate,  and  Dana  as  a  classmate.  So  with  both  friend- 
ship began  early  and  was  life-long.  While  he  was  the  greatest 
American  painter  of  his  day,  his  poetical  works  gave  him 
rank  among  the  first  American  poets  of  the  early  nineteenth 
century.  Though  a  Southerner  by  birth,  born  on  a  plantation, 
his  boyhood  and  youth  were  spent  .in  New  England,  and  his 
art  work  in  his  own  country  was  identified  with  Boston  and 
Cambridge.  He  began  writing  poetry  and  studying  art,  in  the 
crude  way  of  those  days,  when  in  college  ;  and  in  his  senior 
year  he  delivered  a  poem  on  the  death  of  Washington,  at  the 
commemoration  by  the  college  of  that  event.  After  his  gradu- 
ation he  returned  to  Charleston  and  began  painting.  He  went 
abroad  in  1801,  and  a  few  years  later  settled  down  in  Rome 
for  the  practical  study  of  his  art.  There  began  an  acquaint- 
ance which  developed  into  a  life-long  intimacy  with  Samuel 
Taylor  Coleridge,  and  our  own  Washington  Irving. 

"  He  returned  home  in  1809,  and  marrying  A^n  Channing 
established  himself  in  Boston,  where  he  remained  for  a  few 
years  painting,  and  writing  poetry,  his  rooms  the  center  of  a 
refined  society.  Then,  going  back  to  Europe,  he  settled  in 
London.  While  there,  in  1813,  the  volume  of  poems  which 
established  his  reputation  — '  The  Sylphs  of  the  Seasons  and 


CAMBRIDGE  REVISITED.  297 

Other  Poems'  —  was  published.  His  novel,  or  tale,  <Monaldi,' 
appeared  twenty-eight  years  later.  He  enjoyed  during  his 
London  life  the  friendship  of  Wordsworth,  Southey,  and 
Lamb,  besides  Coleridge,  while  in  his  art  he  ranked  with  the 
leading  English  painters.  One  of  his  works  was  a  portrait  of 
Coleridge,  now  in  the  National  Portrait  Gallery,  London.  His 
first  wife  died  in  England. 

"  Of  Allston's  homes  here  in  Cambridge  —  there  were  two 
of  them  —  no  trace  now  is  to  be  found.  Both  were  on  Maga- 
zine Street  near  the  Charles  Kiver  end.  The  first,  as  he 
described  it,  was  a  '  commodious  little  mansion,  prettily  situ- 
ated in  a  retired  part  of  the  village  [Cambridgeport  was  then 
a  place  of  farms,  and  rural  fields],  and  commanding  a  pleasant 
view  of  the  adjacent  country,  taking  in  a  part  of  the  river  and 
a  picturesque  little  pine  wood  which  used  to  be  the  favorite 
haunt  of  my  younger  days,  to  which  I  used  to  saunter  after 
college  hours  and  dream  sometimes  of  poetry  and  sometimes 
of  my  art/  The  second  house  was  closer  to  his  studio,  - —  or 
4  painting-room,'  as  he  called  it,  a  very  plain  barn-like  building 
—  and  was  built  after  his  own  model,  to  suit  his  fastidious 
taste.  It  remained  an  interesting  object  long  after  the  neigh- 
borhood was  built  up  with  modern  dwellings.' 

"  Allston  himself  was  a  picturesque  figure  of  almost  exqui- 
site mold.  Lowell  in  the  e  Cambridge  Thirty  Years  Ago '  thus 
attractively  sketched  him  in  his  old  age  : 

'"The  stranger  who  took  the  "Hourly"  at  Old  Cambridge  [the 
omnibus  rumbling  between  Cambridge  and  Boston,  long  before  street- 
car times],  if  he  were  a  physiognomist  and  student  of  character,  might 
perhaps  have  had  his  curiosity  excited  by  a  person  who  mounted  the 
coach  at  the  Port,  so  refined  was  his  whole  appearance,  so  fastidiously 
neat  was  his  apparel,  —  but  with  a  neatness  that  seemed  less  the  result 
of  care  and  plan,  than  a  something  so  proper  to  the  man  as  whiteness  to 
the  lily,  —  that  you  would  have  at  once  classed  him  with  those  individuals 
rarer  than  great  captains  and  almost  as  rare  as  great  poets,  whom  Nature 
sends  into  the  world  to  fill  the  arduous  office  of  Gentleman.  .  .  .  There 
are  some  men  whom  destiny  has  endowed  with  a  faculty  of  external 


298  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

neatness,  whose  clothes  are  repellent  of  dust  and  mud,  whose  unwither- 
ing  white  neck-cloths  preserve  to  the  day's  end,  unappeasably  seeing  the 
sun  go  down  upon  their  starch,  and  whose  linen  makes  you  fancy  them 
heirs  in  the  maternal  line  to  the  instincts  of  all  the  washerwomen  from 
Eve  downward.  There  are  others  whose  inward  natures  possess  this 
fatal  cleanness,  incapable  of  moral  dirt  spot.  You  are  not  long  in  dis- 
covering that  the  stranger  combines  in  himself  both  these  properties.  A 
nimbus  of  hair,  fine  as  an  infant's,  and  early  white,  showing  refinement 
of  organization  and  the  predominance  of  spiritual  over  the  physical, 
undulated  and  floated  around  a  face  that  seemed  like  pale  flame,  and  over 
which  the  flitting  shades  of  expression  chased  each  other,  fugitive  and 
gleaming  as  waves  upon  a  field  of  rye.  It  was  a  countenance  that,  with- 
out any  beauty  of  features,  was  very  beautiful.  I  have  said  that  it  looked 
like  pale  flame,  and  can  find  no  other  words  for  the  impression  it  gave. 
Here  was  a  man  all  soul,  whose  body  seemed  a  lamp  of  finest  clay,  whose 
service  was  to  feed  with  magic  oils,  rare  and  fragrant,  that  wavering  fire 
that  hovered  over  it.  ...  As  the  stranger  brushes  by  you  in  alighting, 
you  detect  a  single  incongruity,  —  a  smell  of  dead  tobacco-smoke.  You 
ask  his  name,  and  the  answer  is,  "  Mr.  Allston."  "Mr.  Allston  !"  and 
you  resolve  to  note  down  in  your  diary,  every  look,  every  gesture,  every 
word  of  the  great  painter  ?  Not  in  the  least.  You  have  the  true  Anglo- 
Norman  indifference,  and  most  likely  never  think  of  him  again  till  you 
hear  that  one  of  his  pictures  has  sold  for  a  great  price,  and  then  contrive 
to  let  your  grandchildren  know  twice  a  week  that  you  met  him  once  in  a 
coach,  and  that  he  said  "  Excuse  me,  sir,"  in  a  very  Titianesque  manner, 
when  he  stumbled  over  your  toes  in  getting  out.' 

"  Allston  died  suddenly  at  midnight  of  a  July  Sunday  while 
sitting  in  a  contemplative  attitude  after  hard  labor  on  the  un- 
finished canvas  of  his  great  painting  f  Belshazzar's  Feast.'  r' 

From  this  picture  we  turned  to  Holmes's  sketch  of  Marga- 
ret Fuller  as  a  schoolgirl  and  after,  copy  of  which  I  had  also 
made  in  my  note  book : 

"'She  came  with  a  reputation  of  being  smart.  .  .  .  Her  air  to  her 
schoolmates  was  marked  by  a  certain  stateliness  and  distance,  as  if  she 
had  other  thoughts  than  theirs  and  was  not  of  them.  She  was  a  great  stu- 
dent and  a  great  reader  of  what  she  used  to  call  naw-ve"ls.  .  .  .  Margaret 
as  I  remember  her  at  school  and  afterwards,  was  tall,  fair  cornplexioned, 
with  a  watery  aqua-marine  luster  in  her  light  eyes,  which  she  used  to 
make  small,  as  one  does  who  looks  at  the  sunshine.  A  remarkable  point 


CAMBRIDGE  REVISITED. 


299 


about  her  was  that  long,  flexible  neck,  arching  and  undulating  in  strange, 
sinuous  movements  which  one  who  loved  her  would  compare  to  those  of  a 
swan,  and  one  who  loved  her  not  to  those  of  the  ophidian  who  tempted 
our  common  mother.  Her  talk  was  affluent,  magisterial,  de  haul  en  6oa, 
some  would  say  euphuistic,  but  surpassing  the  talk  of  women  in  breadth 
and  audacity.'  " 

Then  her  career,  and  its  influence  on  the  literature  of  her 
time,  were  recalled,  for  her  birthplace  was  in  "  the  Port."  It 
was  not  worth  while,  I  sug- 
gested, to  visit  the  spot,  for  it 
is  all  changed  now.  The 
house  was  on  Cherry  Street, 
at  the  corner  of  Eaton  Street, 
a  roomy  dwelling,  with  pil- 
lared doorway,  adorned  in 
front  with  a  row  of  elms,  be- 
hind with  a  blooming  flower 
garden.  When  Margaret  was 
still  a  girl  the  family  left  this 
house  and  moved  up  to  Cam- 
bridge proper,  just  above  the 
Port  line,  into  the  "  old  Dana 
mansion,"  a  local  landmark 
of  distinction  then  on  this 
main  street.  In  her  mature 
life,  in  the  early  forties,  the  home  was  for  a  twelve-month  on 
Ellery  Street  near  the  Dana  house  site,  and  for  a  similar  period 
on  Prospect  Street  near  by  the  academy  of  Margaret's  girl  days. 

"  Probably  no  woman  of  her  time,"  I  went  on,  "  surpassed 
Margaret  Fuller  in  intellectual  culture,  yet  she  left  in  published 
books  little  illustrative  of  her  powers.  She  was  the  eldest  of 
eight  children,  a  precocious  girl  almost  from  infancy,  and  was 
educated  at  high  pressure,  receiving  a  training  which  boys  only 
were  given  in  those  days,  when  destined  for  college.  At  six 
she  had  begun  studying  Latin,  and  before  her  teens  she  was  a 


MARGARET    FULLER  (Marchioness  Ossoh). 


300  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

promising  Greek  scholar.  At  fifteen  this  was  her  daily  routine 
in  the  summer  season  :  (  She  rose  before  five  o'clock,  walked  an 
hour,  practiced  an  hour  on  the  piano,  breakfasted  at  seven,  read 
Sisinondi's  "European  Literature"  in  French  till  eight,  then 
Brown's  "  Philosophy  "  till  half  past  nine,  went  to  school  for 
Greek  at  twelve,  practiced  again  till  dinner ;  after  the  early 
dinner  read  two  hours  in  Italian,  then  walked  or  rode,  and  in 
the  evening  played,  sang,  and  retired  at  eleven  to  write  in  her 
diary/  '  This  be  it  observed/  says  Thomas  Wentworth  Hig- 
ginson  in  his  biography  of  her  from  which  this  statement  is 
quoted,  '  was  at  the  very  season  when  girls  of  fifteen  or  six- 
teen are  in  these  days  on  their  way  to  the  seashore  or  the 
mountains/ 

"  No  wonder  that  with  such  rigorous  regime  she  became 
the  most  learned  American  woman  of  her  day,  and  one  of  the 
most  peculiar.  Her  father,  Timothy  Fuller,  was  a  man  of 
strong  intellect  and  pronounced  opinions,  descended  from  a 
line  of  hard-headed  Fullers,  a  successful  lawyer,  politician,  and 
orator,  whose  public  service  had  covered  terms  in  the  State 
Legislature  and  in  Congress.  He  directed  and  pushed  his 
daughter's  studies  and  was  proud  of  her  extraordinary  intel- 
lectual capacity.  When  she  was  twenty -three  the  family 
moved  to  Groton,  then  an  isolated  country  town,  nearly  forty 
miles  away  from  the  intellectual  center  of  Boston.  Here,  how- 
ever, she  managed  to  provide  herself  with  books  out  of  the 
common  reach,  and  while  teaching  her  brothers  and  sisters,  she 
pursued  an  astonishingly  full  course  of  reading  in  German  lit- 
erature and  philosophy,  and  in  European  and  American  history, 
mastering  subjects  and  doctrines  with  which  but  few  of  her 
contemporaries  of  the  masculine  sex  were  familiar.  She  early 
became  intimately  associated  with  the  foremost  literary  men  of 
her  time,  notably  Emerson,  and  when  yet  in  young  womanhood 
was  famed  in  her  circle  for  the  brilliancy  of  her  conversation, 
and  her  masterful  critical  faculty. 

"  The  exercise  of  Margaret  Fuller's  literary  influence  out- 


CAMBRIDGE  REVISITED.  301 

side  her  own  coterie  began  after  her  father's  death,  when  she 
was  twenty-live.  She  had  then  come  down  to  Boston  to  teach 
the  languages  in  Bronson  Alcott's  unique  school,  and  to  report 
the  mystic  schoolmaster's '  Conversations  on  the  Gospels '  which 
he  delivered  to  his  tender  pupils  as  part  of  the  regular  school 
course  —  an  occupation  of  short  duration,  for  the  school  was 
short  lived.  While  engaged  in  this  work  she  taught  French, 
German,  and  Italian  to  private  classes  of  her  own,  and  indulged 
her  marvelous  conversational  powers. 

"  After  another  year's  teaching  in  an  academy  at  Provi- 
dence, Rhode  Island,  she  began  her  famous  t  Conversations '  on 
literary  and  philosophical  themes  in  Boston  before  classes  of 
women.  These  continued  through  five  winters,  —  from  1839 
to  1844,  —  and  were  without  precedent  in  this  country.  They 
were  given  weekly,  beginning  at  mid-day,  and  were  chief  of  all 
the  literary  < functions'  of  their  seasons.  Among  the  maids 
and  matrons  constituting  the  classes  at  different  times  were 
such  women  as  the  wives  of  Emerson,  Theodore  Parker,  and 
George  Bancroft,  Channing's  daughter,  Lydia  Maria  Child,  and 
Maria  White  who  became  Lowell's  wife.  The  subjects  treated 
ranged  from  German  philosophy  to  mythology,  with  a  great 
variety  of  learned  topics  considered  along  the  way.  Margaret 
opened  each  Conversation  with  an  introductory  talk,  and  then 
drew  out  her  hearers  by  inducing  them  to  question  her;  but 
generally  she  did  most  of  the  talking.  After  the  opening 
of  the  series  when  Greek  literature  was  the  theme,  she  wrote 
Emerson  enthusiastically,  <  I  assure  you,  there  is  more  Greek 
than  Bostonian  spoken  at  the  meetings.'  Later  on,  evening 
Conversations  to  men  were  instituted,  but  these  though  draw- 
ing some  very  clever  folk  did  not  have  much  vogue. 

"But  the  broader  achievement  of  Margaret  Fuller,  for 
which  Higginson  declares  she  will  always  be  an  important 
figure  in  American  history,  was  as  'the  organizer  and  execu- 
tive force'  of  what  he  terms  'the  first  thoroughly  American 
literary  enterprise.'  This  was  The  Dial,  of  which,  she  was  the 


302  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

editor  through  part  of  its  existence  of  four  troubled  years 
(1840-1844).  It  had  its  origin  in  a  club  of  '  speculative  stu- 
dents who  found  the  air  in  America  getting  too  close  and 
stagnant/  as  Emerson  has  chronicled.  This  was  the  original 
Transcendental  Club,  so  called,  formed  after  several  years  of 
talk  and  consultation.  It  was  the  time  of  the  literary  awaken- 
ing in  America,  of  the  movement  for  a  national  literature,  im- 
pelled to  a  not  inconsiderable  extent  by  Emerson's  famous 
Phi  Beta  Kappa  oration  of  1837  here  in  Cambridge  on  '  The 
American  Scholar/  The  members  of  this  club,  nearly  all  of 
whom  became  contributors  to  The  Dial,  included  Dr.  Frederick 
H.  Hedge,  the  Greek  scholar,  George  Eipley,  founder  of  the 
Brook  Farm  community,  Emerson,  Alcott,  James  Freeman 
Clarke,  Theodore  Parker,  Convers  Francis,  the  learned  Water- 
town  minister,  Cyrus  A.  Bartol,  Margaret  Fuller,  and  Elizabeth 
P.  Peabody. 

"  The  Dial  announced  itself  as  a  quarterly  magazine  for 
literature,  philosophy,  and  religion ;  its  purpose  to  furnish  a 
medium  for  *  the  freest  expression  of  thought  on  the  questions 
which  interest  earnest  minds  in  every  community.7  It  encoun- 
tered much  criticism  and  not  a  little  ridicule  from  contempo- 
rary publications  and  writers.  Its  failure  —  from  a  financial 
point  of  view,  at  least. —  was  due,  Emerson  has  explained,  to 
the  limited  number  of  workmen  at  that  time  of  sufficient  cul- 
ture for  a  poetical  and  philosophical  magazine,  and  to  the  cir- 
cumstance (which  has  wrecked  many  a  worthy  periodical 
venture  since  its  day)  that  '  as  the  pages  were  rilled  by  unpaid 
contributors,  each  of  whom  had,  according  to  the  usage  and 
necessity  of  this  country,  some  paying  employment,  the  jour- 
nal did  not  get  his  best  work,  but  his  second  best/  Emerson 
edited  it  through  its  last  two  years. 

"  Margaret  Fuller's  later  work  was  in  New  York  as  a  regu- 
lar writer  on  Horace  Greeley's  Tribune, — one  of  the  first 
women  to  be  attached  to  the  staff  of  a  daily  newspaper.  Her 
contributions,  like  her  'Conversations/  treated  a  wide  range 


CAMBRIDGE  REVISITED.  303 

of  topics,  but  her  principal  occupation  was  the  review  of 
books.  In  this  department  her  critical  powers  were  displayed 
at  their  fullest,  and  with  a  frankness  and  a  vigor  which  have 
seldom  been  matched.  Longfellow  and  Lowell,  then  among 
the  accepted  newer  poets,  were  of  those  who  came  under  her 
lash.  Some  of  her  longer  criticisms  are  collected  in  the  vol- 
ume of  her  writings  entitled  l  Life  Within  and  Life  Without/ 

"  Her  last  years  were  marked  by  romance  and  tragedy. 
One  day  in  Kome,  while  she  was  on  a  tour  of  Europe  in  ful- 
fillment of  a  long  cherished  wish,  she  became  separated  from 
friends  with  whom  she  had  attended  vespers  in  a  church,  and 
missing  her  way  out,  she  was  piloted  to  her  destination  by  a 
young  Italian  gentleman.  He  was  Giovanni  Angelo,  Marquis 
Ossoli,  of  an  old  Roman  family.  This  chance  meeting  speedily 
ripened  into  friendship,  then  to  love ;  and  despite  the  disparity 
of  ages,  they  married,  and  she  became  the  Countess  Ossoli. 
For  some  reason  the  marriage  was  kept  secret ;  and  it  was  not 
divulged  till  the  siege  of  Kome  by  the  French  army,  in  the 
revolution  of  1848,  when  the  marquis  was  fighting  with  the 
revolutionists,  and  she  was  succoring  the  wounded  in  the  hos- 
pitals. A  short  year  of  placid  life  in  Florence,  with  their 
infant  boy  Angelo,  followed  the  Roman  upheaval,  while  Mar- 
garet's pen  was  busied  with  the  history  of  the  short-lived 
Roman  Republic  of  1849. 

"  Then  came  the  voyage  home  with  its  fatal  ending :  the 
long  strain  of  two  months  on  shipboard ;  the  death  of  the 
captain  at  sea  from  small  pox ;  the  illness  of  the  child  from 
the  dread  disease,  and  his  almost  miraculous  recovery;  the 
approach  at  last  to  land  with  the  hope  of  speedy  disembarka- 
tion ;  the  gale  off  the  coast  of  New  Jersey  and  the  midnight 
hurricane ;  the  striking  of  the  ship  on  Fire  Island ;  the  long 
wait  for  help  within  sight  of  the  protecting  shore ;  the  drown- 
ing before  the  parents'  eyes  of  the  little  Angelo  in  the  arms  of 
the  steward  trying  to  make  the  beach ;  the  sweeping  off  of  the 
deck  by  the  great  waves ;  the  final  engulfing  of  the  few  pas- 


304  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

sengers  clinging  to  the  wreck,  —  Margaret  and  her  husband, 
Horace  Sumner,  brother  of  Charles  Sumner,  and  a  young 
Italian  girl. 

"  The  history  of  the  Koman  Eepublic  never  appeared. 
The  manuscript  went  down  with  the  ship.  Of  Margaret  Ful- 
ler's books,  her  translations  of  Eckermann's  Conversations  with 
Goethe,  and  of  the  letters  of  Fraulein  Giinderode  and  Bettina 
von  Arnim,  and  her  «  Women  in  the  Nineteenth  Century/  pub- 
lished in  1844,  have  endured  the  longest." 


From  Quincy  Square,  where  we  left  the  car,  we  turned  into 
Quincy  Street  —  the  eastern  boundary  of  the  college  grounds, 
upon  which  the  president's  house  faces  —  to  pass  the  Agassiz 
house,  the  home  of  Louis  Agassiz  (born  in  Switzerland,  1807 
—  died  in  Cambridge,  1873)  through  the  last  twenty  years  of 
his  life.  We  came  upon  it  near  the  upper  end  of  the  short 
street,  on  the  right  side,  a  house  of  unusual  size  and  unusual 
architecture,  which  attracted  Percy's  eye  before  I  had  chance 
to  identify  it  for  him.  It  was  built  by  the  college,  he  was  told, 
expressly  for  Agassiz.  There  was  the  great  library  on  the 
entrance  floor,  its  lines  of  shelves  packed  with  his  thousands 
of  volumes  of  scientific  works,  and  broad-surfaced  tables  strewn 
with  maps  and  "  specimens."  There  was  the  spacious  drawing- 
room  into  which  the  sociable  savant  was  wont  of  evenings  to 
bring  his  work,  writing  on  a  portfolio  on  his  knee,  that  he 
might  at  the  same  time  enjoy  the  companionship  of  his  family 
and  neighboring  friends  who  happened  in.  There  was  the 
generous  dining-room  in  which  famous  men  of  science  and  lit- 
erature gathered  on  occasion  about  the  liberal  board.  On  the 
upper  floor  was  the  roomy  apartment  of  the  Agassiz  School 
for  Young  Ladies,  that  unique  academy,  a  forerunner  of  Rad- 
cliffe  College,  which  Mrs.  Agassiz  conducted,  and  in  which  the 
professor  taught  through  easy  conversational  lectures  in  the 
sixties,  —  established  to  eke  out  the  family  income,  for  in  those 


CAMBRIDGE  REVISITED.  305 

times  Agassiz's  regular  salary  was  but  fifteen  hundred  dollars 
per  annum,  and  his  lecture  fees  often  went  largely  for  science. 

I  quite  agreed  with  Percy  that  next  to  the  great  Museum 
of  Comparative  Zoology,  which  Agassiz  founded  from  the 
smallest  beginnings,  and  which  is  his  noble  monument,  this 
house  is  the  most  interesting  landmark  of  the  savant.  For 
here  was  done  much,  if  not  most,  of  the  literary  and  scientific 
work  of  his  pen,  which  increased  the  wide  fame  he  had  when 
he  came  to  America,  and  which  added  so  much  to  the  world's 
knowledge.  When  he  moved  into  this  house  in  1854,  he  had 
been  but  eight  years  in  the  United  States,  and  but  six  years  in 
his  professor's  chair,  that  of  natural  history  created  for  him 
in  the  Lawrence  Scientific  School,  then  newly  established. 
Only  a  few  years  before,  he  had  married  Miss  Elizabeth  Gary 
—  (she  was  his  second  wife ;  the  Swiss  wife,  who  had  shared 
his  European  work  and  honors,  having  died  in  the  old  home  in 
Switzerland)  —  and  had  settled  down  for  life  here  in  Cam- 
bridge. 

"  In  this  house  he  composed  the  four  large  quarto  volumes 
of  the  contemplated  ten-volumed  (but  never  finished)  '  Contribu- 
tions to  the  Natural  History  of  the  United  States/  the  first  of 
which  was  completed  on  his  fiftieth  birthday,  —  that  day  cele- 
brated by  Longfellow's  lines  <  To  Agassiz.'  Here  was  written 
his  '  Methods  of  Study  in  Natural  History,'  published  in  1863, 
and  his  (  Geological  Studies ' ;  and  the  outlines  of  many  of 
those  fascinating  lectures  which  he  delivered  at  various  times 
all  over  the  country. 

"  You  have  heard  how  he  came  to  make  America  his  chief  - 
est  working  field  ?  No  ?  His  coming  was  primarily  a  mission 
from  the  King  of  Prussia  to  study  the  geological  formations 
and  the  natural  history  of  North  America,  and  incidentally  to 
give  some  lectures  before  the  Lowell  Institute  of  Boston. 
These  lectures,  —  the  first  course  <0n  the  Plan  of  Creation, 
especially  in  the  Animal  Kingdom,'  and  the  second  on  his 
especial  subject  of  Glaciers,  —  given  in  1846-'47,  were  such  a 


306  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

momentous  success  that  an  interest  was  immediately  awakened 
in  his  teachings,  and  place  was  soon  made  for  him  at  Harvard. 
The  revolutionary  upheavals  of  1848  in  Europe  changed  his 
plans  ;  and  his  ardent  devotion  to  the  work  begun  here  led  him 
ultimately  to  determine  to  give  the  remainder  of  his  life  unre- 
servedly to  it.  He  died  in  this  house,  and  was  buried  in  yon- 
der Mount  Auburn,  where  a  bowlder  from  the  glacier  of  the 
Aar,  and  a  group  of  pine  trees  from  his  native  place  in 
Switzerland,  mark  his  grave." 

Another  landmark  of  interest  was  seen  in  the  house  next 
above  the  Agassiz  place,  now  occupied  by  The  Theological 
School  of  the  New  Jerusalem  Church.  This  was  the  home  of 
Jared  Sparks  (born  in  Wellington,  Conn.,  1789  —  died  in  Cam- 
bridge, 1866),  the  historian,  through  the  last  twenty  years  of  his 
life,  during  which  period  he  brought  out  his  "  Correspondence 
of  the  American  Revolution  "  ;  and  also  collected  the  mass  of 
material  for  his  contemplated  diplomatic  history  of  the  Rev- 
olution, now  preserved  with  the  Sparks  Manuscripts  in  the 
College  Library.  It  was  while  living  here  that  he  served  as 
President  of  Harvard  (1849-1853),  his  Alma  Mater,  from 
which  he  had  graduated  thirty  odd  years  before.  Of  the 
"  sunny  library  "  in  this  house  in  which  Sparks  did  his  literary 
work  in  most  methodical  and  orderly  fashion,  and  which  was 
'reserved  practically  unchanged  for  years  after  his  death  by  his 
widow  who  long  survived  him,  I  had  copied  the  pleasant  sketch 
given  by  Professor  Herbert  B.  Adams  in  his  life  of  the  histo- 
rian ;  which  I  duly  read : 

•*  His  standing  desk  was  still  there,  as  he  left  it,  surmounted  by  silver 
candlesticks.  Adjoining  this  library  there  was  a  little  room  containing 
his  private  papers.  .  .  .  There  were  his  bound  manuscript  journals,  his 
commonplace  and  account  books  ;  his  letter-book  in  quarto  form,  contain- 
ing copies  of  the  most  important  letters  written  by  him  ;  there,  too,  was 
the  vast  collection  of  letters  received  by  him  chronologically  arranged  in 
leathern-bound  cases  resembling  quarto  and  octavo  volumes,  with  the 
records  of  letters  received  and  sent  through  a  long  and  busy  life.  The 
manuscripts  of  Mr.  Sparks's  lectures  on  the  American  Revolution  were 


CAMBRIDGE  REVISITED. 


307 


there.     So  also  were  the  bound  manuscripts  of  his  printed  works,  and  a 
set  of  the  North  American  Revieio  during  the  period  of  his  editorship." 

"  When  Sparks  was  engaged  upon  his  «  Writings  of  General 
Washington,' "  I  remarked,  "  he  was  living  in  the  Craigie  house, 
where  the  identical  letters  which  he  was  editing  were  written, 
when  that  house  was  Washington's  headquarters,  a  coincidence 
upon  which  the  historian  felicitated  himself  in  his  journal.  That 
was  between  1833  and  1835.  The  '  Diplomatic  Correspond- 
ence of  the  Revolution,'  which  preceded  the  <  Washington,'  and 
was  also  in  twelve  volumes,  he  prepared  largely  during  his 
residence  in  Boston.  His 
editorship  of  the  North 
American  extended  from 
1824,  when  he  purchased 
the  review,  to  1831.  The 
notable  '  Library  of  Amer- 
ican Biography,'  which  he 
edited  and  brought  out 
between  1834  and  1837, 
was  carried  forward 
partly  in  Boston  and 
partly  here  in  Cambridge. 
His  ten  volumes  of  Frank- 
lin's Works  and  Life, 
published  between  1836 
and  1840,  were  also  in  part  prepared  during  his  Cambridge 
life.  Fully  a  hundred  volumes  of  historical  or  biographical 
work  bear  Sparks's  name  as  author  or  editor." 

Turning  now  into  Kirkland  Street  and  walking  a  little  way 
down  this  old  thoroughfare,  —  which  used  to  be  called  Profess- 
ors' Row,  because  so  many  of  the  college  professors  lived 
here,  —  we  reached  the  long-time  home  of  that  fine  personality, 
Professor  Francis  James  Child  (bora  in  Boston,  in  1825  —  died 
there,  1896),  who  has  been  ranked  foremost  among  American 
scholars  in  Anglo-Saxon  and  early  English  literature,  and  whose 


PROF.    FRANCIS   J.    CHILD. 


308 


LI  TERA  R  Y  PIL  GRIM  A  GES. 


"  English  and  Scottish  Popular  Ballads"  is  a  classic.  This 
house,  set  back  from  the  street,  with  vine-clad  piazza  along  the 
street  front,  entrance  porch  at  the  side,  the  front  grounds  a 
garden,  struck  Percy's  fancy.  I  wished  that  he  could  have 
seen  the  place  in  the  professor's  time,  when  it  was  embowered 
in  roses,  of  which  he  was  an  ardent  and  devoted  cultivator, 
growing  them,  as  Howells  has  written,  "  in  a  splendor  and  pro- 
fusion impossible  to  any  but  a  true  lover  with  a  genuine  gift 


STUDY   IN    PROFESSOR    CHILD'S    HOUSE. 

for  them."  The  peculiar  appearance  of  the  dwelling,  as  of  two 
distinct  houses  brought  together,  I  explained  was  due  to  the 
building  of  the  larger  rear  part  as  an  afterthought,  when  the 
occupants  had  outgrown  the  front  part.  The  library  was  in 
the  front  part,  and  the  working  study  in  the  rear.  The  latter 
was  a  veritable  scholar's  den,  with  the  genuine  bookish  flavor, 
a  retreat  into  which  it  was  the  privilege  of  only  his  nearest 
friends  to  penetrate.  The  scholar's  desk,  a  flat  table,  stood 


CAMBRIDGE  REVISITED. 


309 


near  the  middle  of  the  room,  near  at  hand  were  his  literary  tools, 
and  always  in  their  season  blooming  roses  from  the  garden. 

"Probably  for  no  professor  of  his  day  had  Harvard  men 
a  warmer  affection,"  I  observed  as  Percy  stood  contemplating 
the  house.  "  He  was  connected  with  the  college  as  tutor  or 
professor  almost  from  his  own  graduation,  in  1846,  after  a  few 


PROFESSOR  CHILD  IN  HIS  ROSE  GARDEN. 

months  spent  abroad  in  study  in  his  favorite  fields.  He  was 
professor  of  rhetoric  and  oratory  from  1851,  and  professor  of 
English  literature  from  1871  till  his  death,  and  gave  these 
departments  of  the  university  a  superior  character  and  stand- 
ing. His  class  lectures  on  Anglo-Saxon,  Chaucer,  and  Shak- 
spere  were  especially  rich,  while  his  handling  of  the  students' 
themes  was  of  infinite  value  to  those  who  would  heed  his  choice 
criticism,  and  be  guided  by  him  to  the  pure  English,  style  of 
which  he  was  master. 


310  LITER AEY  PILGRIMAGES. 

"His  collection  of  English  and  Scottish  Popular  Ballads 
was  a  literary  recreation  with  him,  begun  almost  with  his  pro- 
fessorship and  pursued  with  an  ardor  and  thoroughness  which 
a  scholar  would  be  expected  to  give  to  an  absorbing  life-study. 
Its  final  publication,  in  exquisite  form,  between  1883  and  the 
year  of  his  death,  was  a  literary  event.  Nearly  a  quarter  of 
a  century  before  he  had  brought  out  his  first  eight-volume 
edition  of  the  ballads,  following  the  standard  American  edition 


"SHADY    HILL,"    HOME   OF   CHARLES    ELIOT   NORTON 

of  the  ( British  Poets'  which  he  edited,  and  which  inspired 
him  to  the  closer  study  of  balladry." 

The  Norton  house,  home  of  Professor  Charles  Eliot  Norton 
(born  in  Cambridge  1827  —  ),  the  Dante  scholar  and  authority 
on  the  literature  of  the  fine  arts,  was  next  on  our  list.  A  short 
walk  brought  us  to  "  Shady  Hill,"  as  it  is  fitly  called —  a  man- 
sion of  early  nineteenth-century  type,  long  and  low,  with  long 
piazzas,  retired  among  venerable  trees  on  the  edge  of  which 
was  once  "  Norton's  Woods."  It  was  the  home  originally  of 
the  father  of  the  professor,  Andrews  Norton,  the  Biblical 


CAM  Kill  I)(,'K    HEVISITED.  311 

scholar,  and  himself  a  professor  in  the  Harvard  Divinity 
School,  where  he  occupied  the  chair  of  sacred  literature  from 
1819  to  1830.  Percy  heard  with  lively  interest  that  these 
Nortons  were  in  direct  descent  from  the  minister,  John  Norton 
of  Ipswich,  whose  ancient  homestead  we  had  visited  on  our 
pilgrimage  to  Ipswich  town. 

"They  were  all  cultivated  men,  these  Nortons,"  our  talk 
ran  on,  "  each  leaving  his  stamp  on  the  literature  of  the  soil. 
Charles  Eliot  Norton  held  his  Harvard  professorship  of  the 
history  of  art  for  nearly  a  quarter  of  a  century  (1874-'98), 
retiring  at  length  to  devote  himself  exclusively  to  literary 
work  which  was  accumulating  on  his  hands.  To  him  we  owe 
the  published  Correspondence  of  Carlyle  and  Emerson,  and  of 
Goethe  and  Carlyle ;  the  miscellaneous  Letters  of  Carlyle ;  the 
Letters  of  his  life-long  friend  James  Russell  Lowell,  with  the 
slight  thread  of  biography  running  through  them  ;  and  the  col- 
lected writings  of  that  Bayard  of  American  letters,  George 
William  Curtis.  In  his  young  manhood,  and  indeed  quite  to 
middle  life,  Mr.  Norton  was  much  abroad,  making  long  stays 
in  Europe,  given  to  study  and  observation  of  the  development 
of  the  fine  arts,  some  of  the  results  of  which  appeared  in  his 
'  Historical  Studies  in  Church  Building  in  the  Middle  Ages,' 
and  in  his  class-room  lectures.  His  translation  of  Dante  was 
among  his  earlier  works.  He  holds  the  primacy  among  culti- 
vated Americans." 

A  turn  or  two  by  cross  paths  took  us  up  past  the  Palfrey 
place,  the  Cambridge  home  of  John  Gorham  Palfrey  (born  in 
Boston,  1796  —  died  in  Cambridge,  1881),  the  historian  of  New 
England.  The  house  of  this  estate  was  seen  also,  secluded  in  a 
grove  of  trees.  Here  Palfrey  spent  his  declining  years  after  his 
retirement  from  public  life,  placidly  pursuing  his  historical  work. 
"  Few,  I  fancy,"  I  remarked,  "  few  of  this  day  and  generation 
are  aware  of  the  strenuous  part  which  Palfrey  played  in  public 
affairs  in  his  prime,  or  of  the  extent  of  his  literary  activity. 

"  Son  of  a  merchant  of  Demerara  and  Boston,  who  was  also  a 


LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

Louisiana  planter,  and  grandson  of  an  officer  of  the  Revolution, 
who  was  an  aide-de-camp  of  Washington  at  the  occupation  of 
Dorchester  Heights,  he  became  early  an  aggressive  anti-slavery 
advocate.  When  the  slaves  of  his  father's  Louisiana  planta- 
tion came  to  him  by  inheritance  he  liberated  them  all.  Gradu- 
ating from  Harvard  in  the  class  which  included  Jared  Sparks 
and  Theophilus  Parsons  (the  class  of  1815),  he  became  first  a 
clergyman.  For  thirteen  years  he  was  settled  over  the  Brattle- 


HOME    OF   JOHN    G.    PALFRE' 


Square  Church  'in  Boston,  the  immediate  successor  there  of 
Edward  Everett.  He  served  eight  years  as  professor  at  Har- 
vard, succeeding  Andrews  Norton  in  the  chair  of  sacred  litera- 
ture. Then  he  entered  politics,  and  served  successively  in 
the  Massachusetts  Legislature,  the  secretaryship  of  the  Com- 
monwealth, and  Congress.  In  the  Legislature  he  interested 
himself  with  Horace  Mann  in  developing  the  public  school 
system.  In  Congress  his  uncompromising  course  brought  upon 


CAMBRIDGE  REVISITED. 


313 


him  much  ostracism,  and  his  defeat  for  reelection  in  a  remark- 
able contest  which  inspired  Lowell's  lines  beginning : 

"  « There  are  who  triumph  in  a  losing  cause 
Who  can  put  on  defeat  as  'twere  a  wreath 
Unwithering  in  the  adverse  popular  breath, 
Safe  from  the  blasting  demagogue's  applause  ; 
'Tis  they  who  stand  for  Freedom  and  God's  laws.' 

"  He  was  a  political  abolitionist,  and  a  founder  of  the  Free 
Soil  party.  All  this  time,  from  his  ministry  through  his  politi- 
cal career,  he  was 
actively  engaged 
in  literature.  Be- 
tween 1836  and 
1842,  within  the 
period  of  what  has 
been  termed  its 
'  great  days,'  he 
edited  the  North 
American,  contribu- 
ting also  to  its 
pages  numerous  ar- 
ticles alluded  to 
as  remarkable  for 
scholarship  and  ac- 
umen. Later  he 
wrote  much  on  theo- 
logical  subjects. 
His  history  of  New 
England,  planned 
large,  was  conceived 
while  he  was  in  the 
thick  of  politics ; 
and  after  his  en- 
forced retirement  to  literary  privacy,  he  gathered  the  material, 
here  and  in  England,  and  developed  the  work  with  precision 


BUST   OF    DR.    PALFREY    IN    MEMORIAL    HALL. 


314  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

and  painstaking  detail.  The  publication  of  the  three  large 
octavo  volumes,  between  1858  and  1864,  widened  his  reputation 
especially  with  historical  scholars.  The  compendious  history 
in  four  smaller  volumes  followed,  in  1866-'73." 

Back  again  on  Kirkland  Street  and  at  its  upper  end,  we 
passed  the  birthplace  of  Thomas  Wentworth  Higginson  (born 
1823 — );  and  a  little  north  of  this  the  site  of  the  "gambrel- 
roofed  house"  in  which  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  was  born. 
Holmes's  description  of  this  place  and  its  association  with  the 
opening  of  the  Revolution  as  the  headquarters  of  General  Arte- 
mas  Ward,  were  yet  fresh  in  Percy's  memory,  they  having 
been  fully  recalled  in  our  earlier  historic  pilgrimage.  He  tried 
again  to  picture  in  his  mind  the  mansion's  appearance  and  set- 
ting in  Holmes's  boyhood :  with  the  "  row  of  tall  Lombardy 
poplars  mounting  guard  on  the  western  side " ;  the  line  of 
elms  leading  up  to  the  western  entrance ;  the  porch  from  which 
President  Langdon  prayed  for  God's  blessing  on  the  little  band 
of  raw  troops  starting  off  on  their  night  march  to  Bunker  Hill. 
And  within  the  great  "  dark  and  haunted  garret"  beneath  the 
gambrel  roof ;  the  attic  chambers  "  which  themselves  had  his- 
tories "  ;  the  rooms  of  the  second  story,  "  chambers  of  birth  and 
death,  sacred  to  silent  memories  "  ;  the  heavy -beamed  "  study  " 
on  the  ground  floor,  with  its  shelves  of  books  about  which  the 
boys  of  the  household  "  tumbled  "  in  familiar  association  with 
literature,  and  those  legendary  "  dents  "  in  the  floor  credited  to 
the  ponderous  butts  of  the  Continental  soldiers'  firelocks ;  the 
old-fashioned  garden;  the  "fields  of  waving  grass"  beyond, 
"  and  trees  and  singing  birds ;  and  that  vast  territory  of  four 
or  five  acres  around,"  the  Holmes  Farm,  "  to  give  a  child  the 
sense  that  he  was  born  to  a  noble  principality."  Percy  tried, 
also,  to  imagine  this  farm,  covered  now  by  the  Hemenway 
Gymnasium,  the  Lawrence  Scientific  School,  the  Jefferson 
Physical  Laboratory,  and  old  Holmes  Field. 

Meanwhile  I  was  speaking  of  other  points  in  the  story  of 
the  historic  mansion :  its  association  with  men  connected  with 


CAMBRIDGE   REVISITED 


315 


316  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

the  college  before  and  after  its  occupancy  by  the  Holmes 
family.  Of  these  before  the  Holmes' s  day  were  the  second 
Jonathan  Hastings  (who  inherited  the  place  from  his  father, 
the  first  Jonathan),  for  thirty  years  steward  —  now  called  bur- 
sar —  of  the  college,  and  Eliphalet  Pearson,  the  learned  pro- 
fessor of  Oriental  literature.  After  the  Holines's  day  and  its 
purchase  by  the  university,  it  was  the  home  successively  of 
Professor  William  Everett,  Edward  Everett's  son,  and  Profess- 
or James  B.  Thayer  of  the  Law  School,  for  the  new  building 
of  which,  on  its  grounds,  the  mansion  finally  made  way.  Also, 
it  was  the  seat  of  Judge  Oliver  Wendell,  the  Autocrat's  mater- 
nal grandfather,  before  his  father,  the  Rev.  Abiel  Holmes, 
established  himself  in  it,  two  years  preceding  the  Autocrat's 
birth. 

Then  we  chatted  about  Parson  Abiel  Holmes  himself :  his 
"  Annals "  of  Cambridge,  the  early  history  of  the  town ;  his 
ministry  of  nearly  forty  years,  from  1792,  in  the  First  Parish ; 
his  tenacious  adhesion  to  the  old  faith  after  the  Unitarian 
whirlwind  had  swept  through  the  Puritan  churches ;  his  ulti- 
mate dismissal  for  this  adhesion,  and  his  association  with  the 
seceders  who  held  the  faith  with  him  in  a  new  Trinitarian 
church, —  the  Shepard  church,  the  steeple  of  whose  present 
meeting-house  we  could  see  across  the  Common  ;  and  his  long, 
cultivated  life  in  the  gambrel-roofed  house  till  his  death,  in 
1837. 

Of  Higginson's  birthplace  we  had  his  own  sketch  in  his 
autobiographical  "  Cheerful  Yesterdays "  :  a  house  spacious 
and  roomy,  then  facing  an  open  field  now  largely  covered  by 
Memorial  Hall,  and  occupying  grounds  adjoining  the  Holmes 
Farm.  It  was  built  shortly  before  his  birth,  by  his  father,  at 
the  time  steward  of  the  college.  "  Higginson  alludes  to  him- 
self as  a  '  child  of  the  college,' "  I  said,  "  born  in  the  college, 
so  to  speak,  bred  to  it,  and  interested  in  all  its  men.  The 
home  life,  too,  must  have  been  in  itself  a  liberal  education  for 
him.  His  father's  connection  with  the  college,  and  the  popu- 


GAM  r.UIDGE  EE VlSl  TED. 


317 


larity  of  his  inotlier  and  aunt,  brought  many  guests  to  the 
house,  including,  he  has  told  us,  the  most  cultivated  men  in 
Boston  as  well  as  in  Cambridge.  And  there  was  a  fascinating 
library  of  a  thousand  or  so  volumes,  composed  chiefly  of  English 
literature  and  history  of  the  eighteenth  century.  There  were 
here  also  the  new  books  of  the  choicest,  though  then  few,  Ameri- 
can writers,  copies  of  which  it  was  their  custom  upon  publica- 
tion to  present  to  their  friends,  among  whom  the  Higginsons 
were  counted. 

"  The  father,  Francis  Higginson,  came  of  a  < line  of  Puritan 
clergymen,  officials,  militia  officers,  and  latterly  East  India 
merchants/  all  dating  back  to  that  Reverend  Francis  Higgin- 


BIRTHPLACE   OF    THOMAS    WENTWORTH    HIGGINSON. 

son  who  landed  in  Salem  in  1629  with  the  first  large  party  for 
the  Massachusetts  Bay  Colony.  He  had  been  a  prosperous 
East  India  merchant  in  Boston,  till  the  Embargo  preceding  the 
War  of  1812  swept  away  his  trade  and  fortune.  The  mother 
was  a  great  granddaughter  of  one  of  the  Portsmouth  Went- 
worths,  —  Judge  Went  worth,  a  grandson  of  the  first  of  the  three 
royal  Governors  Wentworth,  from  whom  Colonel  Higginson  gets 
his  middle  name.  She  was  his  father's  second  wife,  married 
at  nineteen,  sixteen  years  the  junior  of  her  husband.  They  had 
ten  children,  of  whom  Thomas  Wentworth  was  the  youngest. 


318  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

"  Higginson  passed  his  boyhood  here  in  Cambridge  (his 
father  died  when  he  was  nine  years  old),  and  in  his  fourteenth 
year  entered  the  college  in  the  class  of  1841.  Among  his 
classmates  was  Levi  L.  Thaxter,  of  whom  we  heard  at  the  Isles 
of  Shoals  as  Celia  Thaxter's  husband,  and  a  warm  friendship 
grew  up  between  them,  fostered  by  their  mutual  love  of  letters. 
Thaxter,  Higginson  says,  was  an  ardent  student  of  literature, 
and  first  led  him  to  Emerson  and  to  Hazlitt.  They  were  both 
also  lovers  of  Longfellow,  and  he  tells  how  they  used  to  sit  at 
the  open  window  every  New  Year's  Eve  and  read  aloud  Long- 
fellow's '  Midnight  Mass  to  the  Dying  Year.7 

"  From  these  college  days  the  literary  life  was  Higginson's 
choice ;  but  he  was  first  turned  to  the  ministry.  He  was  at 
work  in  the  literary  field,  however,  early  in  his  pulpit  career  ; 
indeed,  while  in  his  first  settlement  in  Newburyport,  he  at- 
tained a  standing  as  a  litterateur  as  marked,  almost,  as  his 
prominence  as  an  anti-slavery  advocate,  —  which  so  soon  lost 
him  his  parish  there.  So  through  his  service  as  minister  of  the 
Free  Church  in  Worcester  his  literary  pen  was  much  employed. 
It  was  during  this  period  that  he  compiled  with  Samuel  Long- 
fellow, the  poet's  minister  brother,  his  first  book,  —  the  volume 
of  seaside  poetry,  entitled  i  Thalatta.' 

"  It  was  also  while  a  Worcester  preacher,  by  the  way,  that 
he  took  a  leading  hand  in  the  attempt  to  rescue  the  fugitive 
slave,  Anthony  Burns,  in  Boston  (1854),  and  was  indicted  with 
Theodore  Parker,  Wendell  Phillips,  and  others,  a  deputy  mar- 
shall  having  been  killed  in  that  affair,  but  escaped  with  the 
rest  through  a  flaw  in  the  indictment.  He  had  previously  been 
concerned  in  the  attempted  rescue  of  that  other  fugitive  slave 
Thomas  Simms.  Later  he  was  in  Kansas  prepared  to  fight  in 
the  Free  Kansas  cause.  In  the  Civil  War  he  headed  the  first 
regiment  of  freed  slaves  mustered  in  the  United  States  service 
—  the  First  South  Carolina  Volunteers,  —  as  colonel ;  thus  he 
got  his  title  and  won  unique  distinction. 

".Higginson's  regular  ministry  closed,  and  his  work  exclu- 


CAMBRIDGE  REVISITED.  319 

sively  in  letters  began  three  years  before  the  Civil  War,  and 
since  that  time  his  pen  has  been  pretty  constant  in  the  produc- 
tion of  good  literature.  After  the  war  he  settled  in  Newport, 
Rhode  Island,  and  thence  issued  some  of  his  best  essays,  papers 
on  social  topics,  poems,  his  romance  <  Malbone,'  his  '  Young 
Folks'  History  of  the  United  States,'  that  admirable  pioneer 
of  its  class,  the  '  Larger  History  of  the  United  States,'  and  his 
mellow  '  Oldport  Days/  Then  he  returned  to  Cambridge  as 
his  final  home.  That  was  twenty  years  ago,  and  with  this 
home  is  identified  his  literary  work  of  finest  flavor.  Here  he 
married  his  second  wife,  one  of  Longfellow's  nieces,  and  the 
'  Aunt  Jane  '  of  his  ( Malbone/  His  first  wife  was  his  second 
cousin,  Mary  Elizabeth  Chaiming,  of  the  famous  Channings. 
We  are  to  pass  this  later  house  of  his,  before  long." 

Colonel  Higginson  tells  us  that  in  the  immediate  neighbor- 
hood of  the  Holmes  house  and  of  his  birthplace,  stood  the 
house  of  Royal  Morse,  the  old  village  constable  and  auctioneer 
whom,  as  "  R.  M.,"  Lowell  has  immortalized  in  the  "  Fireside 
Travels." 

We  now  made  a  detour  round  the  Common,  having  on  our 
left  the  ancient  burying-ground  between  the  two  churches, 
"  like  Sentinel  and  Nun  "  keeping  "  their  vigil  on  the  green," 
where  the  dead  presidents  of  the  college  "  stretched  their 
weary  bones  under  epitaphs  stretched  out  at  as  full  length  as 
their  subjects  "  ;  and  where  lies  the  gentle  Vassal  lady :  — 

"Dust  in  her  beautiful  eyes. 

At  her  feet  and  at  her  head  • 

Lies  a  slave  to  attend  the  dead, 
But  their  dust  is  white  as  hers." 

Just  above  old  Christ  Church,  "where  the  gouty  Tories 
used  to  kneel  on  their  hassocks,"  we  turned  into  the  meek 
little  street  staggering  under  the  weight  of  the  classic  name  of 
Appian  Way,  here  to  pass  the  latter-day  home  of  John  Holmes 
(born  1812 —  died  1899),  Dr.  Holines's  younger  brother. 


320  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

Percy  had  not  heard  of  this  Holmes,  he  said,  and  asked 
what  had  been  done  by  him  in  literature. 

"  Little,"  I  replied.  "  And  yet  he  had  the  author's  talent 
as  well  as  his  brother.  Emerson  once  said  that  John  Holmes 
represented  humor,  while  Wendell  Holmes  stood  for  wit.  His 
winsome  quality  sparkled  in  conversation,  in  his  familiar  letters 
or  terse  notes  to  friends,  and  on  rare  occasions  in  verse ;  but 
it  seldom  got  into  print.  Though  not  a  recluse,  he  was,  as 
Higginson  has  said,  *  in  the  last  degree  self-withdrawing  and 
modest,  more  than  content  to  be  held  by  the  world  at  arm's 
length,  yet  capable  of  the  most  devoted  and  unselfish  loyalty 
to  the  real  intimates  he  loved.'  He  basked  in  his  brother's 
fame,  but  good-humoredly  resented  any  implied  superiority  of 
the  Autocrat  over  him.  When  one  day  a  gentleman,  upon 
being  introduced  to  him,  exclaimed,  <  What !  John  Holmes, 
the  brother  of  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes ! '  he  retorted,  with  a 
twinkle,  <  No,  sir,  he  is  the  brother  of  me.'  His  few  publica- 
tions, which  he  reluctantly  let  go  out,  were  confined  to  some 
stray  verses,  and  unique  sketches  of  Old  Cambridge,  delight- 
fully reminiscent  and  lightly  historical. 

"  With  the  exception  of  two  extended  visits  to  Europe, 
long  intervals  apart,  John  Holmes  lived  all  his  life  of  eighty- 
seven  years  here  in  Cambridge,  and  in  two  houses,  —  the 
gambrel-roofed  house,  which  was  also  his  birthplace,  and  this. 
He  moved  here,  —  then  the  dwelling  of  an  old  domestic  of  the 
family,  —  and  established  his  bachelor  quarters  in  the  second- 
floor  rooms,  when  the  homestead  was  sold  to  the  university  a 
few  years  after  the  death  of  his  mother,  which  occurred,  in 
1862,  at  the  great  age  of  ninety-five.  For  many  years  he  had 
lived  alone  in  the  homestead  with  the  gentle  old  lady,  caring 
for  her  in  the  most  tender  way,  as  his  brother  has  testified. 
Howells  says  that  he  was  the  most  devoted  Cantabrigian,  after 
Lowell,  whom  he  knew.  Lowell  called  him  the  best  and  most 
delightful  of  men." 


XVIII. 

FROM   "CRAIGIE    HOUSE"   TO   "  ELMWOOD." 

The  approach  along  Brattle  Street.  —  Scene  of  "  The  Village  Black- 
smith." —  Homes  of  John  Fiske.  —  His  notable  work.  —  In  the  library 
of  "  Craigie  house."  —  Longfellow's  Cambridge  life.  —  His  lirst  rooms 
on  Professors1  Row. — The  "Five  of  Clubs." — First  coming  to  the 
Craigie  house.  —  Madam  Craigie.  — The  upper  and  lower  studies  and 
the  work  done  in  them.  —  The  tragedy  of  the  poet's  life.  — Neighbor- 
ing homes  of  Horace  E.  Scudder  and  T.  W.  Higginson. — Lowell  at 
"  Elmwood." — The  attic  study.— Story  of  the  "Biglow"  papers.  — 
Lowell's  closing  years  at  the  beloved  home.  — John  T.  Trowbridge  at 
Arlington.  — Story  of  "  Neighbor  Jackwood." 

FROM  the  Appian  Way  we  entered  Brattle  Street  and  our 
steps  were  now  directed  westward  toward  the  Longfellow,  or 
Craigie,  house.  At  the  turn  I  indicated  with  a  general  sweep 
of  the  hand,  down  the  street,  where  stood  the  "  village  smithy," 
beneath  the  "  spreading  chestnut  tree,"  scene  of  Longfellow's 
"  Village  Blacksmith."  This  was  by  the  corner  of  Brattle  and 
Story  Streets. 

As  we  strolled  up  Brattle  Street  Percy's  eye  was  attracted 
by  a  long,  low,  peculiarly  designed  dwelling  on  the  left,  at  the 
corner  of  Ash  Street,  having  a  distinguished  look  and  an  air  of 
exceptional  breadth  and  roominess  within.  It  interested  him 
the  more  when  I  told  him  that  this  was  the  house  of  the  late 
John  Fiske  (born  in  Hartford,  Conn.,  1843  —  died  in  Glouces- 
ter, Mass.,  1902)  the  historian,  ripe  student  of  philosophy,  and 
lecturer.  It  was  not,  however,  I  explained,  an  old  established 
landmark,  so  to  speak,  for  it  is  a  new  house,  built  for  Professor 
Fiske,  but  never  occupied  by  him,  his  sudden  death  occurring 
as  he  was  preparing  to  move  into  it.  It  was  fashioned  as  he 


322 


LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 


desired  on  a  large  and  comfortable  scale,  the  library  being 
made  especially  spacious  to  accommodate  his  great  collection 
of  books.  The  house  identified  with  his  large  historical  work 
was  his  former  home  on  Berkeley  Street,  off  Craigie  Street,  in 
neighborly  nearness  to  the  Longfellow  place.  These  remarks 
moved  Percy  to  questionings  about  Fiske  and  his  career,  and 
as  we  walked  I  gave  a  rapid  sketch  of  him  in  this  wise. 


LIBRARY   OF   JOHN    FISKE. 

"  He  lived  here  in  Cambridge  almost  from  his  first  coming 
to  the  college  as  a  student ;  and  he  was  preeminently  a  Cam- 
bridge author.  He  was  born,  by  the  way,  not  Fiske,  but 
Green,  —  Edmund  Fiske  Green.  He  adopted  in  his  boyhood, 
after  his  father's  death,  the  name  of  John  Fiske,  which  was 
that  of  his  maternal  great-grandsire,  a  soldier  of  the  Revolu- 
tion. His  father,  native  of  Delaware,  was  a  newspaper  editor, 
at  different  periods,  in  Hartford,  Connecticut,  New  York,  and 


FROM   "CRAIGIE  HOUSE"    TO   " ELMWOOD."        323 

Panama,  and  died  in  the  last  place.  His  mother  was  of 
Middletown,  Connecticut.  Most  of  his  youth  before  entering 
Harvard,  at  seventeen,  was  spent  in  Middletown,  in  the  family 
of  his  maternal  great-grandmother.  This  was  a  cultivated 
home,  enriched  with  a  good  classical  library ;  and  here,  with 
congenial  surroundings,  he  very  early  began  his  ardent  excur- 
sions into  literature. 

"  The  boy  was  a  prodigious  reader,  and  a  marvelous  scholar. 
If  we  are  to  believe  his  earlier  biographer,  at  seven  he  had  read 
through  Caesar ;  at  nine  had  devoured  much  of  Milton,  Pope, 
and  Bunyan,  and  nearly  all  of  Shakspere ;  at  eleven  had  read 
histories  of  many  lands ;  at  thirteen,  a  large  part  of  Livy, 
Cicero,  Ovid,  Catullus,  and  Juvenal,  and  all  of  Virgil,  Horace, 
Tacitus,  Sallust,  and  Suetonius.  In  like  manner  Greek  was 
disposed  of;  then  modern  languages  were  taken  up, — German, 
French,  Spanish,  Italian,  Portuguese ;  at  seventeen  and  eighteen 
(when  in*  college)  he  was  reading  Hebrew  and  Sanskrit ;  and 
later,  Icelandic,  Danish,  Swedish,  Dutch,  Roumanian,  and  Rus- 
sian. He  started  in  professional  work  not  long  after  his  grad- 
uation as  University  lecturer  on  philosophy  at  Harvard.  He 
then  lectured  at  large  for  several  years,  on  philosophical  and 
historical  subjects  in  various  parts  of  the  country  and  abroad, 
before  his  reputation  as  an  author  had  spread.  At  one  time, 
also,  he  was  librarian  of  Harvard  College. 

"  Fiske's  lectures  on  evolution  brought  him  first  into  promi- 
nence, and  his  earlier  books  were  on  this  and  kindred  subjects. 
It  has  been  said  that  no  American  has  done  more  than  he  in 
expounding  the  Darwinian  theory.  His  notable  contributions 
to  scientific  thought  began  with  his  <  Outlines  of  Cosmic  Philos- 
ophy,' made  up  of  a  series  of  lectures  on  the  doctrine  of  evolu- 
tion. That  was  brought  out  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago,  and 
arrested  instant  attention  from  philosophical  students  and 
readers.  The  next  year  '  The  Unseen  World '  appeared ;  three 
years  later,  <  Darwinism ' ;  after  an  interval  of  four  years,  '  Ex- 
cursions of  an  Evolutionist ' ;  then  in  succession,  *  The  Destiny 


324 


LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 


of  Man  Viewed  in  the  Light  of  his  Origin/  f  The  Idea  of  God 
as  Affected  by  Modern  Knowledge,'  <  The  Doctrine  of  Evolu- 
tion :  Its  Scope  and  Influence,'  and  <  Through  Nature  to  God,' 
—  all  profound  subjects,  so  treated,  and  in  such  attractive  dic- 
tion, as  to  invite  and  hold  the  general  reader  as  well  as  the 
student. 

"Meanwhile  Professor  Fiske's  historical  publications  pre- 
senting especially  the  philosophical  characteristics  of  American 

history,  were  advanced 
with  uncommon  rapidity. 
His  first  work  in  this  field, 
which  also  grew  out  of 
lectures,  was  'The  Criti- 
cal Period  of  American 
History:  1783-1 789,'  is- 
sued in  1888.  This  was 
followed  within  a  year  by 
{ The  Beginnings  of  New 
England.'  Two  years  later 
appeared  'The  American 
Revolution '  ;  the  next 
year,  <  The  Discovery  of 
America,'  later  <Old  Vir- 
ginia ' ;  and  *  The  Missis- 
sippi Valley  in  the  Civil 
War.'  Between  these  larger  studies  were  produced  his  histori- 
cal manuals  for  schools  and  his  <  Myth  and  Myth-Makers.'  No 
writer  has  done  more  in  popularizing  American  history,  and 
accurate  history,  than  John  Fiske.'" 

At   length   at   the   doubly  historic    Longfellow    house,   as 
Washington's  headquarters  and  the  poet's  home,  —  imchanged 
in  aspect  since  Percy  first  saw  it  in  our  previous  pilgrimage,  — 
we  took  up  the  poet's  story  from  the  point  at  which  we  dropped 
it  in  Maine. 

"  We  left  him  there,  you  will  remember,"  I  said,  "  about  to 


JOHN    FISKE. 


FROM    ^CRAIGIE  HOUSE"    TO   "  ELM  WOOD."1         325 

take  up  his  Harvard  work  as  Professor  of  Modern  Languages 
and  Belles  Lettres,  in  the  chair  which  his  friend  George  Tick- 
nor  had  occupied.  It  was  in  December,  1836,  that  he  estab- 
lished himself  here  in  Cambridge,  first  in  a  house  on  old 
Professors'  Row.  These  were  very  pleasant  chambers,  he 
wrote  a  friend,  '  with  great  trees  in  front  whose  branches 
almost  touch  my  windows ;  so  that  I  have  a  nest  not  unlike 
the  birds,  being  high  up  in  the  third  story.  Right  under  me, 
in  the  second,  lives  and  laughs  Cornelius  whose  surname  is 
Felton.'  This  was  Professor  Cornelius  C.  Felton,  then  profess- 
or of  Greek,  afterward  president  of  the  college. 

"  The  poet's  Cambridge  life  thus  began  quietly  and  agree- 
ably. <  Like  the  clown  in  Shakspere,'  he  wrote,  '  I  have  no 
enemy  but  winter  and  rough  weather.'  With  Felton  he  was 
already  on  terms  of  intimacy,  having  made  his  acquaintance 
some  time  before ;  and  he  soon  formed  close  friendships  with  a 
little  group  of  Felton's  friends,  —  Charles  Sumner,  then  an  in- 
structor in  the  Law  School,  George  S.  Hillard,  and  Henry  R. 
Cleveland.  These  four  were  then  young  men  about  Longfel- 
low's own  age,  Felton  like  himself  being  twenty-nine,  Sumner 
twenty -five,  Hillard  twenty-eight ;  and  all  were  pursuing  liter- 
ature along  with  their  professions.  They  early  associated 
themselves  in  a  literary  club,  taking  for  name  the  <  Five  of 
Clubs,'  which  held  together  for  years.  Later,  when  their  glow- 
ing notices  of  each  other's  productions  began  to  appear  in  the 
reviews,  the  slashing  newspapers  dubbed  the  '  Fives '  the  *  Mu- 
tual Admiration  Society,'  and  this  was  the  origin  of  the  phrase 
which  has  come  into  such  common  use,  and  has  been  so  vari- 
ously applied. 

"  Only  a  season  was  passed  in  the  Kirkland  Street  rooms, 
for  in  August  of  his  first  year  Longfellow  was  most  fortunately 
lodged  in  this  '  Craigie  house,'  in  '  two  large  and  beautiful 
rooms ' ;  and,  as  it  happened,  this  remained  his  home  through- 
out the  rest  of  his  life.  How  he  came  to  seek  rooms  here,  and 
how  Madam  Craigie  received  him,  he  has  himself  picturesquely 


326  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

related  in  a  note  which  his  biographer  —  his  brother  Samuel  — 
quotes  in  the  Life.     Thus  it  runs,"   and  taking  up  the  first 
volume,  and  turning  to  the  chapter  on  the  Craigie  house,  I 
read :  — 

"  *  The  first  time  I  was  at  the  Craigie  house  was  a  beautiful  summer 
afternoon  in  the  year  1837.  I  came  to  see  Mr.  McLane,  a  law-student, 
who  occupied  the  southeastern  chamber.  The  window-blinds  were 
closed,  but  through  them  came  a  pleasant  breeze,  and  I  could  see  the 
waters  of  the  Charles  gleaming  in  the  meadows.  McLane  left  Cambridge 
in  August,  and  I  took  possession  of  his  room,  making  use  of  it  as  a  library 
or  study,  and  having  the  adjoining  chamber  for  my  bedroom.  At  first 
Mrs.  Craigie  declined  to  let  me  have  rooms.  I  remember  how  she  looked 
as  she  stood,  in  her  white  turban,  with  her  hands  crossed  behind  her, 
snapping  her  gray  eyes.  She  had  resolved,  she  said,  to  take  no  more 
students  into  the  house.  But  her  manner  changed  when  I  told  her  who 
I  was.  She  said  she  had  read  Outre-Mer,  of  which  one  number  was  lying 
on  her  sideboard.  She  then  took  me  all  over  the  house  and  showed  me 
every  room  in  it,  saying,  as  we  went  into  each,  that  I  could  not  have  that 
one.  She  finally  consented  to  my  taking  the  rooms  mentioned  above,  on 
condition  that  the  door  leading  into  the  back  entry  should  be  locked  on 
the  outside. 

**  'Young  Habersham,  of  Savannah,  a  friend  of  Mrs.  Craigie's,  occu- 
pied at  that  time  the  other  front  chamber.  He  was  a  skillful  performer  on 
the  flute.  Like  other  piping  birds,  he  took  wing  for  the  rice  fields  of  the 
South  when  the  cold  weather  came,  and  I  remained  alone  with  the  widow 
in  her  castle.  The  back  part  of  her  house  was  occupied,  however,  by  her 
farmer.  His  wife  supplied  my  meals,  and  took  care  of  my  rooms.  She 
was  a  giantess,  and  very  pious  in  words,  and  when  she  brought  in  my 
breakfast  frequently  stopped  to  exhort  me.  The  exorbitant  rate  at  which 
she  charged  my  board  was  rather  at  variance  with  her  « preaching. '  Her 
name  was  Miriam,  and  Felton  called  her  'Miriam,  the  profit-ess.'  Her 
husband  was  a  meek  little  man.'  " 

"  And  who  was  Madam  Craigie  ?  "  Percy  asked. 

"  She  was  the  relict  of  Andrew  Craigie,  who  bought  the 
mansion  in  1795.  He  had  been  Apothecary  General  to  the 
American  Army  in  the  Revolution,  and  after  the  war  had 
grown  rich.  He  enlarged  the  estate  to  about  one  hundred  and 
fifty  acres,  extending  back  to  and  including  what  is  now  Ob- 
servatory Hill,  where  the  Harvard  Observatory  stands.  He 


FROM  "CRAIGIE  UOUSE"    TO   " ELMWOOJ)."         327 

also  enlarged  the  mansion,  building  on  the  western  wing  and 
broadening  the  square  northeastern  room  into  a  banqueting- 
hall,  embellished  with  pillars  and  columns,  for  his  grand  din- 
ners. He  set  up  a  princely  establishment,  with  horses  and 
carriages,  and  greenhouses  and  gardens.  But  by  and  by  his 
fortune  disappeared,  and  when  he  died  he  left  the  Madam  a 
life  interest  in  the  mansion,  but  very  slender  income.  Accord- 
ingly she  reserved  a  few  rooms  for  herself,  and  let  out  the 
others  to  lodgers  carefully  selected.  She  was  an  eccentric  per- 
son, and  many  tales  are  told  of  her  peculiarities.  In  this  same 
note  which  I  have  just  read,  Longfellow  gives  us  a  droll  one. 
During  his  first  summer  here  <  the  fine  old  elms  in  front  of  the 
house  were  attacked  by  canker  worms,  which,  after  having 
devoured  the  leaves,  came  spinning  down  in  myriads.  Mrs. 
Craigie  used  to  sit  by  the  open  windows  and  let  them  crawl 
over  her  white  turban  unmolested.  She  would  have  nothing 
done  to  protect  the  trees  from  these  worms.  She  used  to  say, 
"  Why,  sir,  they  are  our  fellow-worms  ;  they  have  as  good  a 
right  to  live  as  we  have."  }  Craigie's  name  is  perpetuated  in 
the  beautiful  street  originally  cut  by  the  rear  of  the  estate, 
and  in  one  of  the  bridges  crossing  the  Charles. 

"  How  old  is  the  mansion  ?  Colonel  John  Vassal  built  it 
in  1759,  and  it  was  the  '  Vassal  house/  stateliest  of  the  stately 
mansions  of  '  Tory  Row,'  along  this  road,  till  the  Vassals  had 
fled  with  the  oncoming  Revolution,  and  it  was  taken  for  Wash- 
ington's headquarters. 

"  But  let  us  get  back  to  Longfellow.  The  poet's  first  study 
was  this  historic  upper  chamber,  which  had  been  Washington's 
private  room  — 

"  '  Yes,  within  this  very  room 

Sat  he  in  those  hours  of  gloom, 
Weary  both  in  heart  and  head,  — ' 

as  Longfellow  has  sung,  and  there  were  written  all  of  his 
poems  till  1845.  Then,  after  his  second  marriage  it  became 


828  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

the  nursery,  and  lie  moved  down  to  the  large  front  room  ad- 
joining the  library.  This  remained  his  study  ever  after.  The 
same  room  was  Washington's  office,  or  business  headquarters, 
while  the  library  room  was  used  by  his  military  family. 

"  *  The  Psalm  of  Life '  was  the  second  poem  written  in  the 
up-stairs  study.  It  was  composed,  Samuel  Longfellow  has 
related,  '  hastily,  upon  the  blank  portions  of  a  note  of  invita- 
tion, and  was  dated  July  26,  1838.'  The  poet  kept  the  manu- 
script closely  to  himself  for  some  time,  unwilling  that  any  one 
should  see  it.  '  It  was  a  voice  from  my  inmost  heart,'  he  wrote 
long  after,  '  at  a  time  when  I  was  rallying  from  depression.' 
It  appeared  first  in  the  Knickerbocker  in  October,  1838,  and 
was  immediately  copied  far  and  wide.  In  it,  the  biographer 
says,  the  critics  '  recognized  a  new  strain  in  American  poetry.' 
And  it  won  the  recognition  of  the  world.  Its  quatrains  be- 
came veritable  household  words  on  both  sides  the  Atlantic. 
The  poem  reappeared,  with  <  The  Midnight  Mass,'  <  The  Keaper 
and  the  Flowers,'  and  a  dozen  other  verses,  in  the  thin  first 
volume  of  '  Voices  of  the  Night/  in  1839,  which,  Professor 
Charles  C.  Carroll  has  said,  formed  an  epoch  in  our  literary 
history. 

"  *  The  Wreck  of  the  Hesperus '  was  based  on  newspaper 
reports  of  shipwrecks  of  fishermen.  In  the  poet's  journal  this 
note  appears  under  date  of  December  17,  1839  :  — 

"  4  News  of  shipwrecks  horrible  on  the  coast.  Twenty  bodies  washed 
ashore  near  Gloucester,  one  lashed  to  a  piece  of  the  wreck.  There  is  a 
reef  called  Norman's  Woe  where  many  of  these  took  place  :  among  others, 
the  schooner  Hesperus.  Also  the  Sea-flower,  near  Black  Rock.  I  must 
write  a  ballad  on  this;  also  two  others  —  The  Skeleton  in  Armor,  and 
Sir  Humphrey  Gilbert.' 

Then  on  the  thirtieth,  thirteen  days  afterward,  we  find  the 
ballad  written,  and  the  manner  of  its  composition  disclosed,  in 
this  note :  — 

"  '  I  wrote  last  evening  a  notice  of  Allston's  poems  ;  after  which  I  sat 
till  twelve  o'clock  by  the  lire  smoking,  when  suddenly  it  came  into  my 


FROM  "CRAIGIE  HOUSE"    TO   "  ELM  WOOD."1         329 

mind  to  write  the  ballad  of  the  Schooner  Hesperus,  which  I  accordingly 
did.  Then  I  went  to  bed,  but  could  not  sleep.  New  thoughts  were  run- 
ning in  my  mind,  and  I  got  up  to  add  these  to  the  ballad.  It  was  three 
by  the  clock.  I  then  went  to  bed  and  fell  asleep.  I  feel  pleased  with  the 
ballad.  It  hardly  cost  me  an  effort.  It  did  not  come  into  my  mind  by 
lines,  but  by  stanzas.' 

"  <  The  Hesperus '  was  first  published  in  the  New  World,  of 
New  York,  which  Park  Benjamin  was  editing,  and  the  honora- 
rium for  it  was  twenty-five  dollars.  It  is  an  interesting  fact 
that  Longfellow  never  saw  Norman's  Woe  till  long  years  after. 
So  late  as  1878  he  wrote  in  a  note  to  Elizabeth  Stuart  Phelps 
[Ward]  upon  his  return  from  an  August  day  call  at  her  tiny 
summer  cottage,  the  '  Sea  Shell,'  in  Gloucester:  <Iam  sorry 
that  I  did  not  stay  long  enough  at  East  P/)int  to  see  the  fog 
lift  and  Norman's  Woe  rise  to  view.  I  have  never  seen  those 
fatal  rocks/ 

"  ( The  Skeleton  in  Armor '  made  its  first  appearance  in  the 
Knickerbocker  in  1841,  and  for  this  the  sum  received  was  also 
twenty -five  dollars.  (  '  Excelsior'  was  written,  in  the  first  draft, 
on  the  back  of  a  note  to  Sumner,  and  was  dated  'half -past 
three,  morning.'  This  first  draft  is  preserved  in  the  College 
Library. 

"  Mrs.  Craigie  died  in  1841,  and  Joseph  E.  Worcester,  the 
maker  of  Worcester's  Dictionary,  took  the  mansion  for  a  year, 
Longfellow  keeping  his  rooms.  The  summer  and  autumn  of 
1842  he  spent  abroad  for  his  health.  While  there  the  <  Belfry 
of  Bruges '  was  inspired,  and  possibly  written.  On  the  return 
voyage  he  wrote  some  poems  against  slavery,  which  were  sub- 
sequently published  in  a  little  volume. 

"In  the  summer  of  the  following  year,  1843,  his  second 
marriage  took  place,  when  he  wedded  Miss  Frances  Elizabeth 
Appleton,  daughter  of  Nathan  Appleton,  the  Boston  merchant 
and  manufacturer,  and  sister  of  Thomas  Gold  Appleton,  of 
whom  we  spoke  when  in  Boston.  Longfellow  had  met  her 
six  years  before  while  traveling  in  Switzerland,  when  she  was 


880  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

a  maiden  of  nineteen.  She  was  the  '  Mary  Ash  burton '  of  his 
'  Hyperion.'  He  brought  his  bride  to  his  rooms  here,  — 
increased  to  three  some  years  before  by  the  addition  of  the 
front  room  across  the  hall,  for  a  dining  room,  where  he  had 
given  choice  little  dinners  to  his  literary  friends,  among  them 
Dickens,  on  his  first  visit  to  America  in  1842.  Soon  the 
mansion  was  purchased  for  them  by  Mr.  Appleton,  with 
the  grounds  immediately  adjoining.  Afterward  he  added  to 
his  gift  the  land  across  the  street,  now  the  public  park  so  well 
named  the  Longfellow  Garden,  thus  securing  the  open  view  to 
the  river  and  beyond  which  the  poet  so  loved. 

"  Longfellow  gave  up  the  old  study  reluctantly.  To  Sum. 
ner  he  wrote  some  time  after,  <I  have  always  regretted  the 
dismantling  of  that  consecrated  chamber.  But  what  can  one 
do  against  the  rising  tide  of  the  rising  generation  ?  '  Yet  the 
new  study  was  charming ;  richer  than  the  old,  with  the  same 
outlook  from  the  deep  windows,  only  from  a  lower  point  of 
view.  The  poet's  work  table  with  his  high  desk  upon  it,  was 
placed  by  the  corner  front  window;  antique  oaken  bookcases 
were  fitted  between  the  windows  and  against  the  high  wain- 
scoted walls,  and  in  this  adjoining  library ;  in  front  of  the 
generous  fireplace  was  set  the  poet's  deep  armchair  in  which 
he  was  wont  to  muse  before  he  wrote,  or  sometimes  to  firstcast 
in  pencil  upon  a  portfolio  resting  on  his  knee.  In  course  of 
years  the  beautiful  room  assumed  the  appearance  which  became 
so  familiar  to  us  through  repeated  descriptions  and  pictur- 
ings,  —  with  the  portraits  on  the  walls  of  Felton  and  Sumner, 
Emerson,  Hawthorne,  and  the  poet  himself,  each  in  his  young 
manhood. 

"There  was  the  round  table  in  the  middle  of  the  room 
agreeably  cluttered  with  books  and  periodicals,  and  upon  it 
the  <  oblong  ebony  tray,  with  two  flacons  for  the  ink,'  inscribed 
on  an  ivory  plate  <  Samuel  Taylor  Coleridge,  his  inkstand ' ; 
also  the  inkstand  of  Thomas  Moore,  —  both  gifts  to  the  poet 
from  English  admirers ;  and  the  poet's  own  inkstand,  with  the 


FROM   "CRAIGIE  HOUSE"    TO   "  ELM  WOOD."        331 


332  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

quill  pens  by  its  side,  the  only  kind  which  he  used,  having  no 
fondness  for  pens  of  steel.  Below  the  ancient  mirror  on  the 
eastern  wall,  surmounted  by  a  statuette  of  Dante,  stood  the 
antique  table,  holding  the  little  Italian  casket  containing  frag- 
ments of  Dante's  coffin,  and  a  miniature  edition  of  the  '  Divina 
Commedia.'  On  the  poet's  high  desk  was  the  statuette  of 
Goethe,  in  long  gray  coat,  with  hands  folded  behind  him;  and 
nearby,  the  tall,  old-fashioned  clock,  similar  to  the  '  Old  Clock 
on  the  Stairs.'  By  the  fireplace,  in  congenial  company  with 
the  older  arm-chair,  was  the  '  Children's  Chair,'  which  Cam- 
bridge school  children  presented  to  the  poet  on  his  seventy- 
second  birthday,  made  from  the  wood  of  the  '  Village 
Blacksmith's  Spreading  Chestnut  Tree,'  cut  down  by  un- 
poetic  city  fathers  to  widen  Brattle  Street. 

"The  first  year  in  this  study  was  prolific.  Within  that 
year  Longfellow  wrote  or  finished  for  publication,  among  other 
poems,  'The  Bridge  Across  the  Charles,'  'Birds  of  Passage,' 
'The  Old  Clock  on  the  Stairs,'  and  'The  Day  is  Done';  he 
began  '  Evangeline '  ;  and  brought  out  his  fourth  volume  of 
collected  poems. 

"  '  Evangeline '  was  started  under  the  name  of  '  Gabrielle,' 
as  a  note  in  the  journal,  dated  November,  1845,  indicates  :  '  Set 
about  Gabrielle,  my  idyl  in  hexameters,  in  earnest.'  But  soon 
he  wrote,  '  Shall  it  be  Gabrielle,  or  Celestine,  or  Evangeline  ?  ' 
Evangeline  was  settled  upon,  however,  before  the  work  had  far 
progressed.  The  suggestion  of  the  idyl  came  indirectly  from 
Hawthorne.  One  day  he  and  a  Boston  friend  were  dining  here 
with  Longfellow,  and  during  the  dinner-table  talk,  the  friend 
related  an  incident  of  the  banishment  of  the  Acadians,  —  the 
story  of  a  young  maiden  who,  in  the  dispersion,  was  separated 
from  her  lover  and  spent  the  rest  of  her  life  in  searching  for 
him.  The  friend  observed  that  he  had  long  been  trying  to 
persuade  Hawthorne  to  write  a  story  on  this  theme.  Haw- 
thorne being  evidently  reluctant  to  undertake  it,  Longfellow 
remarked,  'If  you  really  do  not  want  this  incident  for  a  tale, 


FROM   "VRAK.'IK    IIOUSK"     TO    -  KLM  WOOD."*         333 

let  me  have  it  for  a  poem,'  to  which  Hawthorne  heartily  con- 
sented. That  the  subject  had  been  in  the  romancer's  mind  for 
some  time  appears  from  the  note  in  his  '  American  Note-Book/ 
made  eight  years  before  this  talk  at  Longfellow's  table  : 

"  '  H.  L.  C heard  from  a  French  Canadian  a  story  of  a  young 

couple  in  Acadie.  On  their  marriage  day  all  the  men  of  the  Province 
were  summoned  to  assemble  in  the  church  to  hear  a  proclamation.  When 
assembled,  they  were  all  seized  and  shipped  off  to  be  distributed  through 
New  England,  —  among  them  the  new  bridegroom.  His  bride  set  off  in 
search  of  him,  —  wandered  about  New  England  all  her  lifetime,  and  at 
last,  when  she  was  old,  she  found  her  bridegroom  on  his  death-bed.  The 
shock  was  so  great  that  it  killed  her  likewise.' 

"  (  Evangeline '  appeared  in  October,  1847,  almost  two  years 
from  its  inception,  and  won  the  popular  heart.  One  English 
critic  hailed  it  as  ( the  first  genuine  Castalian  font  which  had 
burst  from  the  soil  of  America.'  Some  criticised  the  rhythm, 
the  choice  of  hexameters ;  but  most  commended  the  radiant 
pictures  of  scenery,  the  pathos  of  the  tale,  and  the  beauty  of 
its  telling. 

"  When  eight  years  later  « Hiawatha '  appeared,  hostile 
critics  broke  out  again.  Some  of  the  newspapers  were  <  fierce 
and  furious  '  over  it.  But  the  poet  took  all  this  complacently. 
When  in  less  than  a  month  after  the  first  issue  the  publishers 
were  putting  to  press  the  tenth  thousand,  he  wrote,  'Critics 
may  assail  as  they  please,  op-pur  si  nuove.'  Again  it  was  the 
meter  which  received  the  brunt  of  attack ;  in  this,  the  eight- 
syllable  trochaic  verse.  The  work  was  ridiculed,  imitated, 
parodied.  One  humorist,  '  P.  Philander  Doesticks  '  (Mortimer 
Thomson),  published  a  burlesque  in  a  book  of  similar  size, 
which  he  called  <  E.  Pluri  Buster.'  But  its  popularity  con- 
tinued steadfast.  After  it  had  been  out  five  years  the  poet 
notes,  <  A  new  edition  of  «  Hiawatha."  My  publisher  says  that 
he  sells  two  thousand  a  year,  which  is  a  great  sale  for  an  old 
book  of  which  fifty  thousand  have  already  been  sold.'  That 
was  forty  and  more  years  ago,  remember,  when  the  literary 


384  LITJSRAJtr  PILGRIMAGES. 

field  was  much  more  contracted  than  now,  and  the  hundred- 
thousand-edition  book,  now  so  common,  was  undreamed  of. 

"  The  composition  of  '  Hiawatha '  occupied  less  than  a  year. 
Under  date  of  a  day  in  June  the  journal  has  this  note,  *  I  have 
at  length  hit  upon  a  plan  for  a  poem  on  the  American  Indians. 
It  is  to  weave  together  their  beautiful  traditions  into  a  whole.' 
And  under  date  of  June  the  next  year  is  recorded  'Proof 
sheets  of  "  Hiawatha."  '  Although  it  started  briskly,  well  out- 
lined in  the  poet's  mind  after  he  had  absorbed  the  great  quarto 
of  Schoolcraft's  Indian  legends  and  lore,  it  did  not  move  for- 
ward smoothly.  There  were  many  interruptions  in  the  work  ; 
some  misgivings  at  times  about  it  all ;  much  rewriting.  Some 
progress  was  made  in  the  summer,  at  the  seaside  in  Nahant. 
In  October  the  poet  seemed  to  be  quite  in  the  spirit  of  the 
work,  noting  in  his  journal,  < "  Hiawatha "  occupies  and  de- 
lights me.  Have  I  no  misgivings  about  it  ?  Yes,  sometimes. 
Then  the  theme  seizes  me  and  hurries  me  away,  and  they  van- 
ish.' But  in  November  he  notes,  '  Head  to  -  -  some  pages  of 
"Hiawatha."  He  finds  the  poem  will  want  human  interest.  So 
does  F.  So  does  the  author.  I  must  put  a  live,  beating  heart 
into  it.'  Then  it  lagged  till  mid-winter.  Finally  in  February 
he  had  eighteen  cantos  satisfactorily  fashioned,  and  a  month 
later  the  poem  was  assumed  to  be  finished. 

«  The  prose  tale  of  <  Kavariagh,'  <  The  Building  of  the  Ship,' 
'  The  Golden  Legend,'  and  the  '  Seaside  and  Fireside '  volume 
of  collected  poems  preceded  '  Hiawatha '  ;  also  <  The  Two 
Angels,'  written  upon  the  birth  of  a  daughter  to  the  poet's 
house,  and  the  death  of  Lowell's  wife.  Before,  too,  he  began 
'  Hiawatha,'  Longfellow  resigned  his  professorship  to  give  him- 
self wholly  to  poetry.  'My  Lost  Youth,'  the  poem  on  his 
birthplace,  from  which  we  quoted  when  in  Portland,  followed 
close  upon  the  finish  of  '  Hiawatha.'  Next  he  devoted  himself 
to  writing  <  The  Courtship  of  Miles  Standish,'  which  came  out 
in  1858.  Two  years  later  appeared  'Paul  Eevere's  Kide,'  a 
part  written  on  the  historic  Nineteenth  of  April. 


l-'HOM  "  CRAIGIE  HOUSE"    TO   "  ELMWOOD."        335 

"  Then  caine  the  tragedy  of  Longfellow's  life,  sharp  and 
swift.  His  brother  has  related  it  in  the  fewest  and  tenderest 
words.  <  On  the  9th  of  July,  1861,  his  wife  was  sitting  in  the 
library  with  her  two  little  girls,  engaged  in  sealing  up  some 
small  packages  of  their  curls  which  she  had  just  cut  off.  From 
a  match  fallen  upon  the  floor  her  light  summer  dress  caught 
fire.  The  shock  was  too  great,  and  she  died  the  next  morning.' 
Three  days  later  she  was  buried  at  Mount  Auburn.  <  It  was 
the  anniversary  of  her  marriage  day,  and  on  the  beautiful  head, 
lovely  and  immarred  in  death,  someone  had  placed  a  wreath  of 
orange  blossoms.  Her  husband  was  not  there,  —  confined  to 
his  chamber  by  the  severe  burns  which  he  had  himself  re- 
ceived.' The  recovery  from  this  calamity  was  slow,  and  the 
shadow  of  it  remained  on  his  life. 

"  When  again  he  took  up  his  pen  it  was  to  begin  the  '  Tales 
of  a  Wayside  Inn.'  But  he  felt  the  need  of  a  *  continuous  and 
tranquil  occupation.'  So  it  was  that  early  in  1863  he  returned 
to  the  task  of  translating  the  'Divina  Commedia,'  which  he 
had  taken  up  years  before  and  laid  aside.  When  the  work  was 
ready  for  the  press  he  called  Norton  and  Lowell  to  his  aid,  and 
the  three,  with  sometimes  one  or  two  other  Dante  scholars, 
went  through  it  on  a  final  revision,  critically  at  every  step. 
Thus  was  formed  the  Dante  Club  which  met  here  Wednesday 
evenings,  when  a  dainty  supper  followed  the  literary  labors. 
The  translation  was  published  in  1867,  the  same  year  in  which 
Norton's  translation  of  the  '  Vita  Nuova '  appeared,  and  Dr.  T. 
W.  Parsons's  fine  version  of  the  '  Inferno.'  Meanwhile  the 
first  installment  of  the  'Wayside  Inn'  had  made  its  appear- 
ance, adding  fresh  laurels  to  the  poet's  fame  ;  the  '  Flower-de- 
luce  '  had  been  completed,  and  the  '  New  England  Tragedies ' 
begun. 

"  In  1868-'69  another,  and  the  poet's  last,  visit  to  Europe 
was  made,  when  he  received  distinguished  courtesies,  private 
and  public ;  and  spent  some  felicitous  dayb  with  Tennyson  at 
the  Isle  of  Wight.  Home  again,  he  settled  down  to  his  old 


336  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

quiet  and  serene  life,  and  a  notable  period  of  literary  activity 
followed.  From  this  time  until  his  death  the  ( output'  in- 
cluded the  translation  of  <The  Divine  Comedy';  the  volume 
of  <  Christus ' ;  the  <  Three  Books  of  Song ' ;  <  Aftermath ' ;  the 
'  Tales  of  a  Wayside  Inn ' ;  the  l  Masque  of  Pandora  ' ;  the 
thirty-one  little  volumes  of  his  selected  i  Poems  of  Places ' ; 
and  <  Keramos.'  Then  the  last  volume,  <  Ultima  Thule,'  with 
the  familiar  lines  —  familiar  from  much  quoting  —  of  the 

initial  poem  : 

*"  Ultima  Thule!  Utmost  isle  ! 
Here  in  thy  harbors  for  a  while 
AVe  lower  our  sails  :  a  while  we  rest 
From  the  unending,  endless  quest.' 

'•'  During  these  latter  years  of  his  life  Longfellow  was  the 
chief  figure  in  Cambridge,  and  this  house  was  beset  by  callers, 
some  distinguished,  more  curious,  to  see  the  poet  and  '  Wash- 
ington's headquarters.'  One  day  he  notes  in  his  journal,  f  Four- 
teen callers  in  the  afternoon.'  On  another, '  Six  Pennsylvanians 
and  one  Bostonian,  called  in  a  body.'  Another  day  an  English- 
man called,  introducing  his  visit  with  the  remark,  <In  other 
countries,  you  know,  we  go  to  see  ruins  and  the  like ;  but  you 
have  no  ruins  in  your  country,  and  I  thought  —  I  thought  — I'd 
call  and  see  you ! ' 

"  He  died  at  the  close  of  a  March  day,  in  1882,  after  a  short 
illness,  surrounded  by  his  family,  in  the  chamber  where  his 
wife  had  died.  The  city  bells  announced  the  end,  tolling  off 
his  seventy-five  years.  At  the  simple  home  funeral  his  brother 
Samuel  read  selections  from  his  poems ;  and  at  the  public  ser- 
vice at  the  Appleton  Chapel,  in  the  College  Yard,  were  read 
these  fitting  lines  from  '  Hiawatha ' : 

' '  '  He  is  dead,  the  sweet  musician  ! 
He  the  sweetest  of  all  singers  ! 
He  has  gone  from  us  forever, 
He  has  moved  a  little  nearer 
To  the  master  of  all  music, 
To  the  master  of  all  singing.1" 


FliOM  "CRA1GIE   HOUSE"    TO   "  ELMWOOD."         387 

With  ;i  reluctant  leave-taking  of  this  revered  landmark,  we 
resumed  our  walk. 

Strolling  on  to  the  junction  of  Brattle  and  Craigie  streets, 
and  turning  back  into  the  latter,  we  came  to  Buckingham 
Street,  and  presently  reached  the  later  home  of  Colonel  Higgin- 
son,  which  I  had  promised  should  be  in  our  route.  This  is  one 
of  the  pleasantest  of  Cambridge  streets,  as  Percy  fancied  it 
must  be,  with  com- 
fortable detached 
houses  agreeably 
placed,  those  on  the 
left  side  set  against 
a  gentle  hill-slope. 

We  followed  this 
side,  and  along  the 
way  I  pointed  out 
(No.  19)  the  house 
where  lived  Horace 
E.  Scudder  (born  in « 
Boston,  1838  — died 
in  Cambridge,  1902), 
maker  of  many  and 
various  books,  some- 
time editor  of  the 
Atlantic,  and  the 
biographer  of  Low- 
ell. It  was  a  modest 

,  *'         •    .    "i  HORACE    E.    SCUDDER    IN    HIS    LIBRARY. 

house  of   quiet    but 

attractive  design,  Percy  pronounced,  retired  from  the  street,  yet 
in  a  neighborly  way  open  to  it  through  uninclosed  grounds. 
"Though  Scudder  was  a  Bostonian  by  birth,  and  a  gradu- 
ate of  Williams  College  (1858),  rather  than  of  Harvard, 
through  all  his  literary  life  Cambridge  was  his  home,"  I  re- 
marked, while  we  tarried  a  moment  before  this  house.  "  Here  in 
Cambridge  he  wrote  those  fascinating  'Dream  Children  '  and  the 


338  LITER  ART  PILGRIMAGES. 

'  Bodley  Books '  for  young  folk,  eight  volumes  of  them,  detail- 
ing pleasing  and  profitable  adventures  among  things  historic. 
Later  appeared  his  excellent  *  History  of  the  United  States ' 
for  young  readers ;  then  his  essays  into  the  broader  field  of 
literature,  brought  together  in  his  '  Men  and  Letters.'  Earlier 
he  wrote  and  published  his  first  and  only  novel,  '  The  Dwell- 
ers in  Five  Sisters'  Court/  now,  I  dare  say,  unknown  to  the 
general  reader  who  feeds  most  lustily  on  novelties,  and  only  a 
memory  to  others;  but  it  was  widely  read  when  new,  and  is 
well  worth  rereading  these  days,  for  its  clever  portraiture  and 
its  Dickensian  flavor,  though  not  at  all  an  imitation  of  Dickens. 
Subsequently  was  gathered  together  some  of  his  lighter  fiction 
in  his  '  Stories  and  Romances.' 

"As  editor  and  author  Scudder  added  good  store  to  our 
stock  of  biography  in  his  life  of  his  missionary  brother,  David 
Coit  Scudder ;  his  <  Noah  Webster ' ;  the  '  Life  and  Letters 
of  Bayard  Taylor,'  done  in  conjunction  with  that  poet's  widow ; 
and  the  life  of  Lowell.  In  his  books  and  papers  on  historical 
topics,  and  his  f  Recollections  of  Samuel  Breck,'  he  contributed 
to  our  knowledge  of  Colonial  life  and  times.  In  the  important 
branch  of  editorial  work  —  that  of  compilation,  which  is  too 
often  slightingly  and  slovenly  performed  —  he  did  great  ser- 
vice, the  numerous  volumes  and  booklets  which  have  come 
from  his  hands  being  models  in  their  way.  Scudder  was  first 
a  magazine  editor  from  1867  to  1870,  in  charge  of  the  River- 
side Magazine  for  Young  People,  which  had  a  popular  run  for 
several  years.  His  editorship  of  the  Atlantic,  succeeding  that 
of  Aldrich,  covered  the  period  from  1890  to  1898." 

We  came  upon  Higginson's  home  (No.  27)  a  little  way 
above  the  Scudder  place,  and  on  slightly  higher  ground. 

"Quaintness,"  Percy  ventured  while  we  stood  looking  up 
to  it  over  the  rustic  front  fence,  —  "  Quaintness,  I  should  say, 
is  what  you  would  call  '  the  dominating  feature '  of  this  place. 
And  how  picturesque  it  all  is !  the  house  of  red,  the  vine-clad 
piazza,  the  side  entrance  porch,  the  broad  window-panes  framed 


FROM  "CUAIG1E  HOUSE"    TO   "XLMWOO&S 


339 


in  old-fashioned  side  lights ;  and  the  grounds,  bounded  by  that 
close  line  of  pines  on  the  upper  side,  and  this  fence  of  bark- 
covered  pales.  Now  this,  to  my  mind,  is  what  a  litterateur's 
place  should  be." 

Within  it  was  equally  choice.      Across  the  threshold,  in 
the  hall,  are  trophies  of  the  colonel's  war  life.     And  on  the 


HOUSE   OF    THOMAS    WENTWORTH    HIGGINSON. 

entrance  floor  are  the  library  and  study,  from  which  have 
issued  those  engaging  essays,  the  life  of  Margaret  Fuller 
Ossoli,  and  the  mellow  books,  —  the  "Cheerful  Yesterdays," 
"  Contemporaries,"  «  Concerning  All  of  Us,"  "  Old  Cambridge," 
and  the  rest,  now  brought  together  with  Higginson's  other 
productions  in  his  "  Collected  Works,"  —  which  have  marked 


340  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

his  ripened  years.  Since  1878,  when  he  came  back  to  Cam- 
bridge permanently  to  live,  as  Percy  learned,  his  work  has 
borne  the  Cambridge  stamp. 

Again  on  Brattle  Street,  and  perhaps  a    third  of    a  mile 
beyond  the  Craigie-Longfellow  house,  we  were  at  that  equally 

revered  land- 
mark, "El  m- 
w  o  o  d,"  b  i  r  th- 
place  and  home 
of  James  Russell 
Lowell  (born 
1819  — died 
1891).  Pressed 
upon  by  modern 
dwellings  more 
than  on  our  pre- 
vious visit,  cur- 
tailed in  extent, 
and  somewhat 
weathered  and 
worn,  the  place 
yet  retained  its 
familiar  aspect. 

Percy  recol- 
lected the  history 
of  the  mansion, 
as  it  was  outlined 
to  him  on  our  pre- 
vious pilgrim- 

COL.    HIGGINSON    IN    HIS    STUDY.  ,,      ,      ., 

age :  that  it  was 

built  in  the  days  "  when  we  lived  under  the  king,"  about  the 
year  1760,  as  the  country  seat  of  Thomas  Oliver,  a  Provincial 
magnate  and  the  last  of  the  royal  lieutenant  governors  of 
Massachusetts ;  that  at  its  entrance  door,  in  1774,  this  Tory 
official  was  forced  by  the  men  of  Middlesex  to  hand  over  his 


FROM   "CRAIGIE  HOUSE"    TO   "SLMWOOD." 


341 


resignation  of  his  office;  that  after  the  Battle  of  Bunker  Hill 
the  mansion  was  converted  into  a  hospital  for  Provincial  sol- 
diers ;  that  some  time  after  the  Revolution,  and  for  a  quarter 
of  a  century,  it  was  the  country  seat  of  Elbridge  Gerry,  patriot, 


JAMES    RUSSELL    LOWELL. 


governor,  and  vice-president ;  and  that  it  became  the  Lowell 
house  shortly  before  the  poet's  birth  (two  years,  to  be  accurate, 
T  suggested),  when  it  was  purchased  by  his  father,  the  Rev. 
Charles  Lowell,  minister  of  the  West  Church,  in  Boston. 


342  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

Then  Percy  was  told*  how  the  place  acquired  its  poetic 
name  of  Elniwood,  from  the  old  English  elms  which  formed 
the  noble  arch  of  approach  to  the  mansion,  and  were  mostly 
of  the  minister's  planting ;  and  its  appearance  in  Lowell's 
boyhood  and  youth  was  pictured  to  him.  "At  that  time," 
I  observed,  "it  was  a  genuine  country  place,  with  garden, 
orchard,  and  pasture,  fronting  a  rural  lane  between  two  country 
roads.  Brattle  Street  was  then  the  'Old  Road/  and  Mount 
Auburn  Street,  the  thoroughfare  on  the  other  side,  the  '  New 
Road.'  And  all  the  surroundings  were  rural.  Eastward, 
toward  the  river,  was  Symonds's  Hill,  long  since  leveled,  from 
which  Lowell's  '  soothing  and  placid '  view  of  <  Cambridge 
Thirty  Years  Ago '  —  almost  eighty  years  now  —  was  so  invi- 
tingly sketched. 

"  While  in  time,  with  the  growth  of  the  village  into  the  town 
and  then  the  city,  all  about  Elmwood  became  changed,  the  estate 
itself  steadfastly  retained  its  old  air  and  dignity,  only  increasing 
in  beauty,  till  Lowell's  death.  When  toward  the  close  of  his  life 
Lowell  returned  to  it,  after  his  years  abroad,  he  wrote,  '  But  oh, 
the  changes !  I  hardly  know  the  old  road,  now  a  street,  that  I 
have  paced  so  many  years,  for  the  new  houses.  My  old  home- 
stead seems  to  have  a  puzzled  look  in  its  eyes  as  it  looks  down 
(a  trifle  superciliously,  methinks)  on  these  upstarts.  "  He  who 
lives  longest  has  the  most  old  clothes,"  says  the  Zulu  proverb, 
and  I  shall  wear  mine  till  I  die.7  It  was  dearer  to  him  than 
any  other  place  in  the  world.  '  I  am  back  again  in  the  place  I 
love  best :  I  am  sitting  in  my  old  garret,  at  my  old  desk,  smok- 
ing my  old  pipe,  and  loving  my  old  friends/  he  wrote  on  an- 
other occasion  of  return  after  long  absence." 

Entering  the  mansion,  we  found  no  difficulty  in  recalling 
the  interior  as  it  appeared  in  Lowell's  time.  Here  is  the  great 
hall,  eight  feet  wide,  running  straight  through  the  middle 
of  the  house,  terminating  with  broad  glass  doors  giving  upon 
the  rear  grounds.  From  either  side  open  the  four  large  rooms, 
each  wainscoted  in  deal,  painted  white,  so  often  described. 


FROM  "CRAIGIE  HOUSE"    TO   "ELMWOOD."          343 


344  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

Here  is  the  drawing-room,  in  the  poet's  later  years  the  lower 
study,  with  its  deep  paneled  recesses  on  either  side  of  the  ample 
fireplaces,  the  farther  recess  lighted  by  a  window  looking  upon 
the  lawn.  Beyond,  the  library,  connected  with  the  drawing-room 
by  arches  at  the  sides  of  the  great  chimneys.  Ascending  from 
the  hall,  the  staircase,  broad  and  stately,  with  quaint  old  twisted 
banisters. 

Passing  the  rooms  of  the  second  floor,  one  of  them  the 
chamber  in  which  the  poet  was  born  on  Washington's  Birthday, 
in  1819,  the  "  attic  high  beneath  the  roof  "  was  reached  where 
was  the  older  study.  This  was  the  room  in  which  most  of  the 
poet's  work  at  Elmwood  was  done,  and  it  was  his  room  in  child- 
hood. His  own  description  of  it  we  find  in  Charles  Eliot  Nor- 
ton's volumes  of  Lowell's  letters.  It  appears  in  one  of  his 
letters,  written  in  1848,  to  his  intimate  friend  Charles  F.  Briggs, 
sometime  editor  of  Putnam's  magazine  in  New  York,  and  I 
read  this  passage . 

"  '  Here  I  am  in  my  garret.  I  slept  here  when  I  was  a  curly-headed 
boy,  and  used  to  see  visions  between  me  and  the  ceiling.  ...  In  it  I 
used  to  be  shut  up  without  a  lamp  —  my  mother  saying  that  none  of  her 
children  should  be  afraid  of  the  dark  —  to  hide  my  head  under  the  pillows 
and  then  not  be  able  to  shut  out  the  shapeless  monsters  that  thronged 
around  me,  minted  in  my  brain.  It  is  a  pleasant  room,  facing,  from  the 
position  of  the  house,  about  equally  toward  the  morning  and  the  afternoon. 
In  winter  I  can  see  the  sunset,  in  summer  I  can  see  it  only  as  it  lights  up 
the  tall  trunks  of  the  English  elms  in  front  of  the  house,  making  them 
sometimes,  when  the  sky  behind  them  is  lead-colored,  seem  of  the  most 
brilliant  yellow.  ...  In  winter  my  view  is  a  wide  one,  taking  in  a  part 
of  Boston.  .  .  .  As  the  spring  advances,  and  one  after  another  of  our 
trees  puts  forth,  the  landscape  is  cut  off  from  me  piece  by  piece,  till  the 
end  of  May  I  am  closeted  in  a  cool  and  rustling  privacy  of  leaves.  Then 
I  begin  to  bud  with  the  season.  .  .  .  When  I  can  sit  at  my  open  window 
and  my  friendly  leaves  hold  their  hands  before  my  eyes  to  prevent  their 
wandering  to  the  landscape,  I  can  sit  down  and  write.' 

"  Lowell's  earliest  literary  efforts  here,"  I  said  as  we  settled 
down  for  a  chat  over  the  poet's  life,  "  were  mostly  his  versifica- 


FROM  "CRAIGIE  HOUSE"    TO   " ELMWOOD."       345 

tions  when  an  undergraduate  at  the  college,  which  he  entered 
at  fifteen.  During  his  junior  year  he  translated  some  odes  from 
Horace.  The  next  year  he  had  produced  a  number  of  '  poetical 
effusions/  as  he  wrote  his  mother  in  dedicating  them  to  her,  — 
1  you,  who  have  been  the  patron  and  encourager  of  my  youthful 
muse.'  His  mother  was  a  woman  of  exceptional  mental  powers, 
and  an  ardent  lover  of  nature.  She  was  a  Spence  of  New 
Hampshire,  of  an  old  Orkney  family,  and  Norton  says,  '  In  her 
blood  was  a  tincture  of  the  romance  of  those  solitary  Northern 
isles.'  These  traits  she  imparted  to  her  son  (her  youngest 
child) ;  while  from  his  father  he  inherited  a  refined  intellectual 
temperament,  a  most  kind  and  tender  heart.  He  once  charac- 
terized his  father  as  '  Dr.  Primrose  in  the  comparative  degree.' 

"  The  first  of  Lowell's  verses  to  be  published  was  his  col- 
lege class  poem,  which  he  did  not  deliver,  for  he  was  '  rusti- 
cated '  at  the  time  and  the  suspension  extended  over  class  day. 
This  suspension  was  in  part  due  to  his  '  cutting '  certain  studies 
which  he  did  not  care  for,  and  devoting  himself  only  to  those 
he  liked.  The  season  of  rustication  was  spent  in  Concord, 
where  his  studies  were  carried  on  under  the  charge  of  good  Dr. 
Ezra  Ripley,  the  Concord  minister,  of  the  Old  Manse.  He  was 
wretchedly  lonesome  and  homesick  there.  He  called  it  ( this 
infernal  Concord.'  Still  he  got  on  well  with  his  tasks,  and  for 
diversion  wrote  this  class  poem.  Although  not  delivered,  it 
was  published  in  a  little  pamphlet,  now  very  rare.  Norton 
says  of  it,  guardedly,  that  '  as  a  poem  it  is  perhaps  above  the 
general  level  of  such  performances.'  Lowell  was  back  in  season 
to  receive  his  degree  with  his  class. 

"The  choice  of  a  profession  much  perplexed  him.  He 
knew  clearly  enough  what  he  wanted  most  to  do.  '  Above  all 
things  should  I  love  to  be  able  to  sit  down  and  do  something 
literary  for  the  rest  of  my  natural  life,'  he  wrote  one  of  his  in- 
timates. But  a  more  practical  occupation  was  desired  by  his 
elders.  He  thought  at  one  time  of  the  ministry,  following  in 
his  father's  and  grandfather's  footsteps ;  at  another,  of  medi- 


346  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

cine.  At  length  he  settled  upon  law.  Taking  up  the  study,  he 
tried  hard  to  like  it.  ( I  am  reading  Blackstone  with  as  good 
a  grace  and  as  few  wry  faces  as  I  may,'  he  wrote,  his  classmate 
Loring  —  afterward  Dr.  George  B.  Loring  of  Salem,  Hawthorne's 
friend.  But  only  a  few  weeks  later  he  wrote,  e  I  have  renounced 
law.  I  am  going  to  settle  down  into  a  business  man  at  last, 
after  all  I  have  said  to  the  contrary.  Farewell,  a  long  farewell 
to  all  my  greatness !  I  find  that  I  cannot  bring  myself  to  like 
the  law,  and  I  am  now  looking  for  a  place  "  in  a  store."  ...  I 
must  expect  to  give  up  almost  entirely  all  literary  pursuits,  and 
instead  of  making  rhymes,  devote  myself  to  making  money.' 

"  A  month  after  this  renunciation,  however,  when  he  was  in 
Boston  looking  for  a  business  opening,  he  happened  into  the 
United  States  Court  where  Webster  was  one  of  the  counsel 
in  a  case  pending,  and  before  he  had  been  there  an  hour  he 
determined  to  continue  in  the  law.  Accordingly  he  resumed 
his  studies.  Meanwhile  he  kept  steadily  at  verse  making  and 
prose  composition.  Again,  and  very  soon,  he  wrote  his  friend 
Loring,  '  I  have  quitted  the  law  forever.'  For  a  while  he  took 
up  lecturing  at  lyceums.  A  lecture  at  Concord  brought  him 
five  dollars.  He  wished  he  might  get  a  call  to  lecture  in  his 
own  Cambridge,  which  paid  fifteen  dollars ;  or  in  Lowell, 
where  the  pay  was  twenty -five,  —  a  lofty  figure  to  him,  evi- 
dently, for  he  quoted  it  with  two  exclamation  marks.  Shortly, 
however,  he  is  found  actually  in  business,  writing  from  a 
Boston  counting-room  about  his  verses  which  are  appearing  in 
the  newspapers  and  magazines.  At  this  time  the  '  Threnodia,' 
which  leads  off  his  'Earlier  Poems'  in  his  collected  works, 
appeared  in  Knickerbocker's.  At  first  he  published  anony- 
mously, or  with  the  nom  de  plume  of  '  Hugh  Percival.'  The 
business  trial  ended  abruptly,  with  his  decision  that  he  was 
1  never  made  for  a  merchant,'  and  for  a  third  time  he  returned 
to  the  law,  this  time  finishing  at  the  Harvard  Law  School. 
He  was  duly  graduated  in  the  summer  of  1840. 

"  It  was  now  necessary  for  him  to  earn  his  livelihood,  for 


FROM  "CRA1G1E  HOUSE"    TO   " ELMWOOD."        347 

his  father  had  suffered  misfortune  in  the  loss  of  the  greater 
part  of  his  personal  property,  although  the  home  estate  re- 
mained intact.  An  additional  spur  to  activity  was  his  engage- 
ment to  Miss  Maria  White,  whom  he  had  first  met  a  few 
months  before  at  her  father's  home  in  the  neighboring  Water- 
town,  and  whose  attractiveness  of  person  and  mind  had  speedily 
charmed  him  —  she  also  became  a  poet.  So  he  went  into  a 
Boston  law  office,  and  endeavored  to  pursue  his  profession. 
But  he  never  practiced. 

"  While  in  the  law  office  he  brought  out  his  first  volume  of 
collected  poems,  (  A  Year's  Life,'  and  wrote  some  of  the  best 
sonnets  and  lyrics  that,  in  his  judgment,  he  had  yet  written. 
At  this  he  expressed  much. gratification,  for  he  had  feared  that 
the  law  would  '  cover  all  the  sunny  greensward  of  his  soul  with 
its  dust.'  The  <  Year's  Life '  included  poems  which  Norton 
declares  gave  him  at  once  the  highest  place  among  the  younger 
American  poets.  The  reception  of  his  work,  it  may  be,  led. 
him  the  speedier  from  law  to  literature  as  his  life  work ;  at  all 
events,  within  two  years  thereafter,  literature  became  and 
remained  his  sole  occupation. 

"It  'paid,'  however,  very  slowly.  In  the  autumn  of  1842, 
after  having  published  much  of  both  poetry  and  prose  in  the 
current  periodicals,  he  ventured  a  magazine  of  his  own,  in 
the  hope  of  increasing  his  slender  revenues.  This  was  the 
Pioneer,  a  literary  and  critical  monthly  journal,  of  high  grade. 
Its  contributors,  besides  himself,  included  Poe,  Hawthorne,  and 
other  growing  writers  of  the  day ;  but  financially  it  was  a 
lamentable  failure.  Only  three  numbers  were  issued,  when  it 
expired,  leaving  a  debt  upon  the  projectors'  hands.-  This  debt 
hung  heavily  upon  Lowell  for  awhile,  but  ultimately  he  cleared 
it  all  off. 

"At  the  end  of  1843  he  published  his  second  volume,— 
'  Legends   of .  Brittany,    Miscellaneous    Poems,    and    Sonnets.' 
This  included  the  <  Prometheus,'  his  first  long  poem  in  blank 
verse,  '  overrunning  with  true  radicalism  and  antislavery,'  as 


348  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

he  wrote  upon  its  original  publication  in  a  magazine.  He  was 
now  fully  launched  in  the  antislavery  cause.  His  lines  on 
«  The  Present  Crisis/  closing  with  the  familiar  stanza  begin- 
ning- 

"  '  New  occasions  teach  new  duties  :  Time  makes  ancient  good  uncouth  ; 
They  must  upward  still,  and  onward,  who  would  keep  abreast  of 
Truth  ; '  - 

were  written,  with  other  poems  of  similar  note,  the  following 
year;  and  at  its  end  his  second  book  appeared:  a  book  of 
essays  purely  literary  —  '  Conversations  on  Some  of  the  Old 
Poets.'  At  this  time,  too,  Lowell's  marriage  with  Maria  White 
took  place.  They  went  to  live  for  the  winter  and  spring  in 
Philadelphia,  where  he  was  a  regular  contributor  to  the  Penn- 
sylvania Freeman,  the  antislavery  paper  which  Whittier  had 
edited.  Returning  to  Cambridge,  they  made  their  home  thence- 
forth at  Elmwood.  In  the  early  summer  of  1846  his  pen  was 
engaged  for  the  Antislavery  Standard  of  New  York,  the  organ 
of  the  American  Antislavery  Society,  edited  by  Sidney  Howard 
Gay.  He  was  to  write  regularly  each  week,  prose  or  poetry. 

"  At  the  same  time  the  first  of  '  The  Biglow  Papers ' 
appeared,  —  that  one  beginning  — 

"  *  Thrash  away,  you'll  hev  to  rattle 

On  them  kittle-drums  o'  yourn,  — 
'Taint  a  knowin'  kind  o'  cattle 

That  is  ketched  with  mouldy  corn ; 
Put  in  stiff,  you  fifer  feller, 

Let  folks  see  how  spry  you  be,  — 
Guess  you'll  toot  till  you  are  yeller 

'Fore  you  git  ahold  o'  me  ! ' 

"  These  pungent  satires  were  directed  against  our  Mexican 
war  which  Lowell  held  to  be  a  war  of  false  pretenses,  <a 
national  crime  committed  in  behoof  of  slavery.'  His  desire 
to  put  in  a  way  that  would  tell,  the  feelings  of  those  who 
thought  as  he  did,  promoted  his  conception.  <  I  imagined  to 


FROM  "CBAIGIE  HOUSE"    TO   "ELM  WOOD."         349 

myself/  he  long  after  related,  in  that  elaborate  '  Introduction ' 
to  the  Second  Series,  '  such  an  up  country  man  as  I  had  often 
seen  at  antislavery  gatherings,  capable  of  district-school  English, 
but  always  instinctively  falling  back  into  the  natural  strong- 
hold of  his  homely  dialect  when  heated  to  the  point  of  seli- 
forgetfulness.'  Needing  on  occasion  to  rise  above  the  level  of 
mere  patois,  he  conceived  the  character  of  the  Rev.  Mr.  Wilbur, 
'  who  should  express  the  more  cautious  element  of  the  New 
England  character  and  its  pedantry,  as  Mr.  Biglow  should 
serve  for  its  homely  common-sense  vivified  and  heated  by  con- 
science.' Mr.  Wilbur's  fondness  for  scraps  of  Latin  he  adopted 
deliberately  to  heighten  the  contrast.  Then,  finding  soon 
afterward  that  he  needed  some  one  as  a  mouthpiece  of  the  mere 
drollery,  he  invented  Mr.  Birdofredum  Sawin,  '  for  the  clown ' 
of  his  '  little  puppet-show.'  In  Sawin,  moreover,  he  meant  to 
embody  that  '  half-conscious  immorality '  which  he  had  noticed 
as  the  <  recoil  in  gross  natures  from  a  puritanism  that  still 
strove  to  keep  in  its  creed  the  intense  saVor  which  had  long 
gone  out  of  its  faitfi  and  life.' 

"  The  success  of  his  experiment  not  only  astonished  him, 
but  early  made  him  feel  the  responsibility  of  holding  in  his 
hand  <  a  weapon  instead  of  the  mere  fencing-stick '  he  had  sup- 
posed. The  Papers  following  through  1846-'4T  were  soon 
transferred  to  the  Antislavery  Standard.  They  were  all  pub- 
lished anonymously,  for,  as  he  wrote  Gay,  he  wished  '  slavery 
to  think  it  had  as  many  enemies  as  possible.'  He  composed 
them  always  rapidly,  and  sometimes,  as  in  the  case  of  the  sec- 
ond one,  '  What  Mr.  Robinson  Thinks/  with  its 

"  ' John  P. 

Robinson  he — ' 

at  one  sitting ;  so  he  wrote  Thomas  Hughes,  —  '  Tom  Brown  of 
Rugby/  you  know,  — .  who  introduced  the  first  English  edition 
of  the  Papers  twelve  years  afterward. 

"  Lowell's  connection  with  the  Standard  continued  uninter- 


350  LTTERAR?  PILGRIMAGES. 

rupted  for  about  four  years,  at  an  annual  salary  beginning  at 
$500,  but  dwindling  after  a  while  as  the  resources  ol  tiie  jour- 
nal narrowed.  His  contributions  were  of  varied  character,  — 
editorials,  miscellaneous  articles,  and  verse.  ]n  its  pages  first 
appeared,  besides  the  antislavery  poems,  <  Eurydice ' ;  'The 
Changeling,'  on  the  death  of  one  little  daughter  and  the  birth 
of  another,  with  its  picture  of  a  child's  smile,  so  frequently 

quoted : 

"  '  To  what  can  I  liken  her  smiling 
Upon  me,  her  kneeling  lover, 
How  it  leaped  from  her  lips  to  her  eyelids, 

And  dimpled  her  wholly  over, 
Till  her  outstretched  hands  smiled  also, 

And  I  almost  seemed  to  see 
The  very  heart  of  her  mother 

Sending  sun  through  her  veins  to  me  ! ' 

—  the  lines  '  To  Lamartine' ;  '  A  Parable,'  written  the  morning 
after  a  Thanksgiving  Day ;  '  The  Parting  of  the  Ways  ' ;  '  Bea- 
ver Brook ' ;  '  The  First  Snow  Fall,'  and  others  which-  have 
become  favorites.  Conspicuous  among  the  antislavery  poems 
were  the  uplifting  '  Stanzas  to  Freedom,'  the  lines  '  To  John  G. 
Palfrey '  from  which  we  have  quoted,  and  the  familiar  <  To  W. 
L.  Garrison,'  beginning  — 

"'In  a  small  chamber  friendless  and  unseen, 

Toiled  o'er  his  types  one  poor,  unlearned  young  man  ; 
The  place  was  dark,  unfurnitured,  and  mean  ; 
Yet  there  the  freedom  of  a  race  began.' 

"  The  year  1848  was  especially  prolific,  the  output  embra- 
cing 'The  Fable  for  Critics';  'The  Biglow  Papers'  in  book 
form,  with  the  unique  introductory  matter  —  '  Notices  of  an 
Independent  Press,'  and  Parson  Wilbur's  '  Introduction  ' ;  and 
the  narrative  poem  of  '  The  Vision  of  Sir  Launfal.'  The 
'  Fable '  was  a  New  Year's  gift  to  his  friend  Charles  F.  Briggs, 
Lowell  retaining  only  the  copyright.  He  declined  even  to 
'  share  the  profits,'  as  Briggs  suggested.  '  I  wish  they  might 


FROM  "  CRAIG1E  HOUSE"    TO   "ELMWOOD."        351 

be  a  thousand  dollars  with  all  my  heart,  but  I  do  not  think 
that  they  will  be  more  than  enough  to  buy  something  for  my 
little  niece  [Briggs's  daughter]  there  in  New  York/  he  wrote. 
As  it  turned  out,  however,  they  were  quite  beyond  his  expecta- 
tions, for  the  '  Fable  '  proved  to  be  one  of  the  most  popular 
things  he  had  written.  It  was  composed  rapidly,  —  '  slapdash,' 
was  Lowell's  expression,  —  and  sent  over  to  Briggs  in  sections 
as  written.  It  was  published  anonymously,  and  stirred  up  the 
critics  considerably. 

"  In  the  collected  <  Biglow  Papers '  the  first  draft  of  <  The 
Courtin' '  made  its  first  appearance  — 

I 

"'Zekle  crep'  up  quite  unbeknown 

An'  peeked  in  thru  the  winder, 
An'  there  sot  Huldy  all  alone, 
'ith  no  one  nigh  to  heuder.' — 

and  so  on.  The  story  of  its  composition  shows  not  only  how 
literary  workers  are  often  *  inspired '  to  their  cleverest  things, 
but  also  Lowell's  facility.  He  tells  it  in  this  wise.  While  the 
introductory  matter  was  going  through  the  press  he  received 
word  from  the  printer  that  there  was  a  blank  page  left  which 
must  be  filled.  He  sat  down  at  once  and  improvised  another 
fictitious  '  notice  of  the  press,'  in  which  (  because  verse  would 
fill  up  the  space  more  cheaply  than  prose'  he  inserted  an* ex- 
tract from  a  supposed  ballad  of  Mr.  Biglow.  He  kept  no  copy 
of  it,  and  the  printer,  as  directed,  cut  it  off  when  the  gap  was 
filled.  After  the  publication  of  the  volume  he  received  letters 
asking  for  the  rest  of  it.  He  had  none,  but  to  answer  such 
demands,  he  patched  a  conclusion  on  it  in  a  second  edition. 
Afterward,  during  the  Civil  War,  being  asked  to  write  it  out 
as  ah  autograph  for  a  Sanitary  Commission  Fair  in  Baltimore, 
he  added  other  verses,  into  some  of  which  he  c  infused  a  little 
more  sentiment  in  a  homely  way,'  and  completed  it  by  <  sketch- 
ing in  the  characters  and  making  a  connected  story.' 

"  The  <  Sir  Launfal '  had  a  flattering  reception.     But   no 


352  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

part  of  it  was  so  widely  copied  as  the  stanzas  on  June.     Every- 
body is  familiar  with  the  lines  — 

'"And  what  is  so  rare  as  a  day  in  June? 

Then,  if  ever,  come  perfect  days  ; 
Then  Heaven  tries  the  earth  if  it  be  in  tune, 
And  over  it  softly  her  warm  ear  lays : '  — 

"It  was  planned  that  the  next  volume  should  be  <The 
Nooning/ on  the  i Canterbury  Tales'  plan.  The  scheme  was 
to  bring  together  at  Elmwood  a  party  of  old  friends,  who  were 
to  go  to  the  river  to  bathe,  and  then,  at  the  suggestion  of  one 
of  them,  go  up  into  a  great  willow  tree,  which  stood  at  the 
end  of  the  causey  near  the  house,  and  hac(Jfeeats  in  it,  to  take 
their  nooning.  There  they  were  to  agree  that  each  should  tell 
a  story  or  recite  a  poem.  In  the  tree  they  were  to  find  a 
countryman  already  resting  himself,  who  should  enter  into 
the  plan  and  tell  a  humorous  tale  with  *  touches  of  Yankee 
character  and  habits  in  it.'  Lowell,  as  the  host,  was  to  read 
his  poem  of  the  '  Voyage  of  Leif  to  Vinland.'  Two  of  the 
poems  were  already  written  —  'The  Fountain  of  Youth '  and 
an  <  Address  to  the  Muse/  to  be  offered  by  the  Transcendentalist 
of  the  party.  But  the  plan  was  never  carried  out,  although 
seventeen  years  afterward  the  dropped  thread  was  taken  up, 
and  more  matter  written.  Several  poems  intended  for  it,  how- 
ever, were  published  separately.  Of  these  the  <  Voyage  to 
Vinland,'  <  The  Fountain  of  Youth,'  *  Pictures  from  Appledore,' 
from  which  we  quoted  at  the  Isles  of  Shoals,  and  the  « June 
Idyl,'  appear  in  i  Under  the  Willows,'  the  *  June  Idyl '  without 
its  title,  as  the  '  forefront '  of  the  volume. 

"  In  1851-'52  Lowell  made  his  first  visit  to  Europe,  one  of 
the  results  of  which  was  his  '  Leaves  from  my  Journal  in  Italy 
and  Elsewhere.'  A  saddening  shadow  on  this  journey  was  the 
death  of  his  only  boy,  Walter,  in  Eome,  and  the  grave  decline 
of  his  wife's  health.  A  twelvemonth  after  their  return  to 
Elmwood  she  died.  Of  their  four  children  only  one  was  left  — 
Mabel,  who  in  after  years  became  Mrs.  Burnett,  the  mother 


FROM    -CIIAIUIE   HOUSE"    TO   "  ELMWOOD."        353 

of  his  four  grandchildren.  Like  Longfellow,  after  the  loss  of 
his  wife,  Lowell  sought  distraction  in  work. 

"  The  autumn  of  1854  was  devoted  to  the  writing  of  his 
series  of  twelve  lectures  on  the  English  Poets,  for  the  Lowell 
Institute  course  in  Boston.  No  such  discourses  had  to  that 
time  been  heard  in  America,  and  they  added  greatly  to  his  repu- 
tation as  critic,  scholar,  and  poet.  The  following  January  he 
was  appointed  to  succeed  Longfellow  in  the  chair  of  <  French 
and  Spanish  Languages  and  Literatures  and  Belles-Lettres  'in 
the  university.  Thereupon  he  went  to  Europe  again  for  special 
studies,  as  his  predecessors  had  done.  Returning  after  an 
absence  of  a  year,  he  took  up  his  new  duties,  and  held  the 
professorship  for  twenty  years. 

"  This  period  was  marked  by  the  editorship  of  the  At/antic 
for  about  four  years  from  its  start  in  the  autumn  of  1857 ;  his 
joint  editorship  with  Norton  of  the  North  American  for  about 
two  years,  the  two  editors  making  it  the  organ  of  the  best  con- 
temporary thought  of  the  country ;  the  revival  of  « The  Biglow 
Papers '  in  the  Civil  War  period ;  and  his  poems  of  the  war, 
beginning  with  'The  Washers  of  the  Shroud'  and  culminating 
with  the  '  Commemoration  Ode '  at  Harvard  at  the  end  of  the 
conflict,  with  the  sublime  closing  stanza  well  worth  cherishing 
in  the  memory : 

"  '  Bow  down,  dear  Land,  for  thou  hast  found  release  ! 

Thy  God,  in  these  distempered  days, 

Hath  taught  thee  the  sure  wisdom  of  His  ways, 
And  through  thine  enemies  hath  wrought  thy  peace  ! 

Bow  down  in  prayer  and  praise  l 
No  poorest  in  thy  borders  but  may  now 
Lift  to  the  juster  skies  a  man's  enfranchised  brow. 
O  Beautiful  !   my  Country  !    ours  once  more  ! 
Smoothing  thy  gold  of  war-dishevelled-hair 
O'er  such  sweet  brows  as  never  other  wore, 

And  letting  thy  set  lips, 

Freed  from  wrath's  pale  eclipse, 
The  rosy  edges  of  their  smile  lay  bare, 
What  words  divine  of  lover  or  of  poet 


354  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

Could  tell  our  love  and  make  thee  know  it, 
Among  the  Nations  bright  beyond  compare  ? 

What  were  our  lives  without  thee  ? 

What  all  our  lives  to  save  thee  ? 

We  reck  not  what  we  gave  thee  ; 

We  will  not  dare  to  doubt  thee, 
But  ask  whatever  else,  and  we  will  dare  ! ' 

"  During  the  second  year  of  his  professorship  Lowell  mar- 
ried Miss  Frances  Dunlap ;  and  toward  the  close  of  the  college 
service  they  were  in  Europe  two  years,  whence  he  sent  his 
beautiful  Eulogy  on  Agassiz,  written  in  Borne. 

"  The  '  Commemoration  Ode '  when  its  composition  was 
actually  begun,  dangerously  near  the  time  for  its  delivery,  was 
written  with  extraordinary  rapidity.  '  Till  within  two  days  of 
the  celebration,'  Lowell  wrote  in  one  of  his  letters,  1 1  was  hope- 
lessly dumb,  and  then  it  all  came  with  a  rush.'  In  another  letter, 
written  twenty  years  after,  he  repeats  that  it  was  an  improvisa- 
tion, and  tells  this  incident  of  Professor  Child's  cheery  indorse- 
ment of  it.  He  had  sat  up  all  night  writing  it  out  clear,  and 
on  the  morning  of  the  day  it  was  due  he  took  it  to  Child,  —  to 
whom  two  days  before  he  had  declared  that  it  was  impossible, 
that  he  was  dull  as  a  doormat.  '  I  have  something,'  he  said, 
'  but  don't  know  yet  what  it  is  or  whether  it  will  do.  Look  at 
it  and  tell  me.'  Child  went  a  little  way  apart  with  it  under  an 
elm  tree  in  the  College  Yard,  and  read  a  passage  here  and  there. 
Then  he  brought  it  back  to  the  waiting  poet  and  said,  <  Do  ? 
I  should  think  so !  Don't  you  be  scared ! ' 

"  The  years  1877-'85  covered  Lowell's  public  service  as 
United  States  minister  first  to  Spain,  then  to  England.  He 
accepted  the  Spanish  mission,  after  declining  the  posts  at 
Vienna  and  Berlin.  His  appointment  to  the  English  mission 
came  upon  him  unexpectedly,  while  at  Madrid.  None  of  his 
literary  predecessors  in  similar  positions  gave  higher  distinc- 
tion to  them.  He  was  no  diplomat,  in  the  political  sense,  but 
he  was  ever  the  representative  of  the  highest  type  of  Ameri- 
canism, and  of  the  ripest  culture  of  the  country.  His  literary 


FROM  "CRA1GIE  HOUSE"    TO  "  ELM  WOOD."       355 

activity  during  this  time  was  slight  as  compared  with  that  of 
the  previous  decade.  Its  richest  fruits  were  his  various 
scholarly  addresses  in  England,  which  are  collected  in  his 
*  Literary  and  Political  Addresses.'  The  volume  of  '  Last 
Poems,'  edited  by  Norton,  was  published  soon  after  his  death. 


S  - 


FACSIMILE   OF    LOWELL'S    MANUSCRIPT. 

«  Lowell's  last  years  glided  by  very  quietly.  For  a  while 
his  winters  were  spent  in  England,  and  his  summers  at  his 
daughter's  home  in  Southborough, —  a  charmingly  unadulter- 
ated New  England  village,  <  and  with  as  lovely  landscapes  as  I 


356  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

ever  saw,'  lie  wrote  his  English  friends.  At  length  he  renewed 
his  life  here  at  Elniwood,  with  his  daughter  and  her  children  : 
his  second  wife  had  died  in  England,  in  1885.  Ke turning  to 
Elmwood  he  felt,  so  he  wrote,  <  as  if  Charon  had  ferried  me 
the  wrong  way,  and  yet  it  is  into  a  world  of  ghosts  that  he 
has  brought  me.'  But  this,  as  always,  was  his  only  real  home. 
He  wrote  a  friend  who  wished  him  to  come  to  Washington  to 
live,  <  I  have  but  one  home  .  .  .  and  that  is  the  house  where  I 
was  born,  and  where,  if  it  shall  please  God,  I  hope  to  die  ;  I 
shouldn't  be  happy  anywhere  else.' 

"  Here  he  died  as  he  wished,  his  death  occurring  on  the 
12th  of  August,  1891,  after  an  illness  of  a  year.  His  funeral 
was  at  Appleton  Chapel,  in  the  College  Yard.  The  pall- 
bearers were  all  his  cherished  friends,  —  President  Eliot  of 
the  University,  Norton,  Child,  John  Bartlett,  Christopher  P. 
Cranch,  the  poet-painter,  Dr.  Holmes,  John  Holmes,  George 
William  Curtis,  and  Howells.  As  the  simple  procession  made 
its  slow  way  from  the  Chapel  to  Mount  Auburn,  all  the  bells  of 
the  city  tolled.  He  was  buried  in  the  spot  of  his  own  selec- 
tion, almost  in  sight  of  the  old  study  windows  of  Elmwood, 
at  the  foot  of  the  ridge  upon  the  brow  of  which  Longfellow 
rests." 

With  this  picture  of  Lowell  among  his  books  by  his 
English  friend  Leslie  Stephen,  our  Elmwood  visit  ended  :  — 

"  All  around  us  were  the  crowded  bookshelves,  whose  appearance 
showed  them  to  be  the  companions  of  the  true  literary  workman,  not  of 
the  mere  dilettanti  or  fancy  bibliographer.  Their  ragged  bindings,  and 
thumbed  pages  scored  with  frequent  pencil  marks,  implied  that  they  were 
a  student's  tools,  not  mere  ornamental  playthings.  He  would  sit  among 
his  books,  pipe  in  mouth,  a  book  in  hand,  hour  after  hour.  Or  he  would 
look  from  his  '  study  windows '  and  dwell  lovingly  upon  the  beauties  of 
the  American  elm,  or  the  gambols  of  the  gray  squirrel  on  his  lawn.  .  .  . 
To  see  Lowell  in  his  home  and  the  home  of  his  father,  was  to  realize  more 
distinctly  what  is  indeed  plain  enough  in  all  his  books,  how  deeply  he  had 
struck  his  roots  into  his  native  earth.  Cosmopolitan  as  he  was  in  knowl- 
edge, with  the  literature  not  only  of  England  but  of  France  and  Italy  at 


FROM  "CRAIGIE  HOUSE"    TO   »  ELM  H'OOD."        357 

his  fingers'  ends,  the  genuine  Yankee,  the  Hosea  Biglow,  was  never  far 
below  the  surface.  No  stay-at-home  Englishman  of  an  older  generation, 
buried  in  some  country  corner,  in  an  ancestral  mansion,  and  steeped  to 
the  lips  in  old-world  creeds,  could  have  been  more  thoroughly  racy  of 
the  soil." 

Since  a  remnant  of  the  day  was  left,  and  we  would  have  no 
better  opportunity,  I  suggested  a  drive  to  Arlington,  the  home 
of  John  T.  Trowbridge  (born  in  Ogden,  K  Y.,  1827 — ),  story 


HOUSE    OF    J.    T.    TROWBRIDGE. 

writer  and  poet,  whose  "  Neighbor  Jackwood "  was  a  house- 
hold friend  through  a  generation.  The  suggestion  was  agree- 
able, and  accordingly  we  lost  no  time  in  engaging  a  road 
wagon  and  driver.  We  could  have  made  the  little  journey 
by  trolley  lines ;  but  the  drive  was  preferable,  since  it  en- 
abled us  to  select  our  route  along  byways. 

We  found  Trowbridge's  home  on  Pleasant  Street,  —  an 
elm-arched  thoroughfare  well  named,  —  backing  upon  the 
pretty  lakelet  which  still  clings  to  its  old-time  name  of  Spy 
Pond.  His  comfortable  estate  occupies  historic  as  well  as 


358  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

picturesque  ground :  "  for  here  it  was,"  I  observed,  "  as 
tradition  tells  (a  well  authenticated,  not  an  apocryphal  tale, 
Trowbridge  pronounces),  that  those  fleeing  British  soldiers  on 
the  Nineteenth  of  April,  1775,  surrendered  to  old  '  Mother 
Batherick/  who  had  been  peacefully  digging  dandelions,  un- 
mindful of  the  unwonted  happenings  on  the  high  road;  and 
who  upon  delivering  them  up,  charged  them,  if  they  ever  got 
back  to  England  alive,  to  '  tell  King  George  that  an  old 
woman  of  Menotomy  took  six  of  his  grenadiers  prisoners  ' ;  " 
—  all  of  which  was  related  during  our  historic  pilgrimage  to 
these  parts  and  Lexington  and  Concord  beyond,  as  Percy  re- 
membered. 

We  passed  up  to  the  house,  —  a  red  painted  house,  with 
roomy  piazzas,  set  back  from  the  road  in  a  frame  of  trees,  — 
and  were  cordially  received  by  my  long-time  friend.  Percy 
found  the  study  a  cosy  apartment  on  the  second  floor,  cheerful 
with  books  and  pictures  and  comfortable  furnishings,  and  with 
windows  opening  upon  inspiriting  views.  By  a  window  over- 
looking the  pond  was  the  desk  at  which  Mr.  Trowbridge  has 
written  most  of  the  stories  that  have  made  him  so  beloved  by 
young  folk,  and  the  poems  that  rank  him  with  our  best  New 
England  poets ;  for  this  house,  Percy  was  informed,  has  been 
his  home  during  more  than  a  third  of  a  century. 

The  period  included  Trowbridge's  editorship  of  Our  Young 
Folks'  Magazine,  with  Jjucy  Larcom  and  "  Gail  Hamilton,"  when 
this  study  was  the  real  editor's  sanctum,  the  formal  office 
being  in  Boston.  Here  were  written  "Jack  Hazard,"  which 
first  ran  as  a  serial  in  Our  Young  Folks,  "A  Chance  for 
Himself,"  "  Doing  His  Best,"  "  Lawrence's  Adventures,"  "  The 
Young  Surveyor,"  "  The  Tide  Mill  Stories,"  and  so  on,  several 
of  which  Percy  had  read.  The  poems  of  this  period  are  col- 
lected in  Mr.  Trowbridge's  various  volumes  of  verse.  The 
initial  lyric  of  his  first  volume  —  "  The  Vagabonds,"  —  which 
has  become  classic,  was  of  an  earlier  date.  That  first  appeared 
in  the  fifties.  It  has  been  recited  on  the  platform  or  stage 


FROM  "CRA1GIE  HOUSE"    TO  "ELMWOOD."        359 

hundreds   of   times.     Percy    knew  it,   he    said,  and    in    proof 
repeated  the  first  two  verses : 

"  We  are  two  travelers,  Roger  and  I. 
Roger's  my  dog.  —  Come  here,  you  scamp  ! 
Jump  for  the  gentleman,  —  mind  your  eye 
Over  the  table,  —  look  out  for  the  lamp  !  — 
The  rogue  is  growing  a  little  old  ; 
Five  years  we've  tramped  through  wind  and  weather, 
And  slept  out-doors  when  nights  were  cold, 
And  ate  and  drank  —  and  starved  —  together. 

We've  learned  what  comfort  is,  I  tell  you  ! 

A  bed  on  the  floor,  a  bit  of  rosin, 

A  fire  to  thaw  our  thumbs  (poor  fellow  ! 

The  paw  he  holds  up  there's  been  frozen), 

Plenty  of  catgut  for  my  fiddle 

(This  out-door  business  is  bad  for  strings), 

Then  a  few  nice  buckwheats  hot  from  the  griddle, 

And  Roger  and  I  set  up  for  kings." 

"Neighbor  Jack  wood,"  Percy  learned,  also  dates  from  the 
fifties.  It  preceded  "  The  Vagabonds."  It  was  written  in 
France  at  Passy,  then  a  little  suburb  of  Paris,  during  Mr. 
Trowbridge's  first  visit  to  Europe  in  1855.  "  He  wrote  the 
novel,"  I  remarked,  "  as  he  once  expressed  it,  between  two 
lives  in  the  greatest  possible  contrast  to  each  other  —  one  with 
friends  in  the  atmosphere  of  the  brilliant  metropolis,  and  the 
other  in  the  plain  Vermont  farmhouse  in  which  the  scene  of 
it  was  set.  It  was  published  upon  his  return  home,  in  1856. 
Soon  afterward  he  wrote  the  play  founded  upon  it,  which 
started  on  its  long  career  at  the  Boston  Museum  in  1857. 

"  <  Neighbor  Jackwood'  was  Mr.  Trowbridge's  third  novel. 
'  Martin  Merrivale  :  His  +  Mark '  preceded  it  by  about  two 
years.  That  was  his  first  notable  success  in  fiction.  His  first 
book,  'Father  Brighthopes,'  of  pleasant  memory,  was  well 
received,  however,  and  disclosed  the  talent  that  was  in  him. 
Before  its  publication  he  had  written  and  published  numerous 
stories  and  sketches,  under  the  pen-name  of  *  Paul  Crey  ton ' ; 


360 


LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 


had  edited  a  story  paper;  and  had  enjoyed  a  brief  experience 
as  a  sub-editor  of  a  newspaper,  which  he  nearly  killed  during 
his  chief's  absence  in  Washington  by  publishing  a  brave  edito- 
rial against  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law.  The  story  'Coupon 
Bonds,'  and  the  novel  of  '  Cudjo's  Cave,'  both  popular  though 
in  different  fields,  were  of  the  Civil  War  period." 

With  a  reference  to  Mr.  Trowbridge's  fine  poem  "  The  Win- 
nower," published  in  the  autumn  of  1899,  fitly  celebrating  his 

seventy-second  birthday, 
our  call  to  this  poet's 
home  ended.  On  the  way 
to  the  station,  where  we 
were  to  take  a  return  train 
to  Boston,  I  spoke  of  Mr. 
Trowbridge's  early  life, 
telling  of  his  birth  in  a 
log  house  on  a  little  clear- 
ing in  the  woods  where 
now  is  the  town  of  Ogden, 
New  York,  to  which  his 
parents  had  moved  from 
New  England  ;  of  his  boy- 
hood on  the  farm,  passed 
in  farm  duties  with  scant 
schooling  at  the  district 

JOHN   TOWNSEND    TROWBRIDGE.  school  ;    of   Ws    passion  for 

books,  which  he  procured  from  a  neighboring  town  library ;  of 
his  "  den  "  in  an  unused  part  of  the  house  where  all  his  spare 
time  he  lived  with  his  dreams  and  his  books ;  of  his  teaching 
himself  French,  Latin,  and  German,  while  following  the  plow, 
through  the  "  noonings,"  and  in  the  leisure  hours :  of  his  one 
term  in  a  classical  school ;  of  his  service  as  a  country  school 
teacher;  of  his  boyish  writings  ;  of  the  thrill  with  which  he 
saw  his  first  poem  in  print,  lines  on  "  The  Tomb  of  Napoleon," 
written  when  he  was  sixteen. 


"CRAIGIE  HOUSE"    TO   "ELMWOUU"        361 

"His  manner  of  work,"  I  concluded,  "has  always  been 
methodical.  His  custom  has  been  to  write  regularly  through 
the  forenoon  hours.  His  poems  have  generally  been  first 
thought  out  in  the  open  air  during  long  walks  or  shorter 
strolls.  His  most  profitable  work  has  been  his  contributions 
to  juvenile  literature.  He  once  said,  '  While  I  might  perhaps 
be  able  to  secure  bread  from  the  sale  of  my  poems,  it  is  from 
the  profits  of  my  boys'  stories  that  I  afford  butter  and  jam.' " 


XIX. 

SUDBURY   AND  CONCORD. 

The  Wayside  Inn.  —  Longfellow's  Picture  in  the  "  Tales.'1  —Story  of  the 

poem. The    Wadsworth    Monument. — Homes    of    u  the  Concord 

Group."  —  Thoreau  and  his  haunts.  — The  poet  Channing.  —  "Aunt 
Mary  Emerson  "  and  Thoreau's  mother.  —  The  Hut  at  Walden.  — 
Frank  B.  Sanborn  and  his  work.  —  The  Concord  Library.  — Birthplace 
of  the  brothers  Hoar.  — Emerson  in  Concord.  — The  Alcotts  and  their 
homes.  — Story  of  a  remarkable  family. — Bronson  Alcott's  unique 
career.  —  Louisa  Alcott's  achievements.  —  The  Concord  School  of 
Philosophy.  —  Hawthorne  at  "  The  Wayside."  —  Scenes  of  his  later 
romances.  —  His  "Walk"  on  the  Ridge. — His  earlier  life  at  the 
Old  Manse. 

THE  "  Wayside  Inn "  at  Sudbury,  and  literary  Concord, 
were  next  on  our  schedule.  Taking  an  early  morning  train  for 
South  Sudbury,  twenty  miles  from  Boston,  we  reached  the 
little  Wayside  Inn  station  in  the  woods  when  the  forenoon 
was  yet  young.  Before  leaving  the  city  we  had  telephoned  the 
landlord  of  the  Inn  to  have  a  carriage  meet  us  here,  and  ac- 
cordingly we  found  awaiting  us  a  smart  trap  with  a  fresh- 
faced  driver.  The  ride  over  of  about  a  mile  and  a  half  along 
a  country  road,  through  sweet-scented  woods  and  bush,  and 
upon  high  land  with  off-spreading  pastoral  landscapes,  was  ex- 
hilarating. A  final  turn  brought  us  on  the  highway,  in  the  old 
days  the  traveled  thoroughfare  between  eastern  and  western 
Massachusetts,  but  now  indeed  a  "  region  of  repose  "  ;  and  off 
to  the  left  the  Inn  first  appeared  to  our  view  in  its  picturesque 
setting,  "  just  as  Longfellow  sketched  it,"  Percy  exclaimed  — 

"  4  A  place  of  slumber  and  of  dreams 
Remote  among  the  wooded  hills.'  " 

362 


8UDBUST  AND   CONCORD. 


363 


My  young  friend  had  evidently  been  "coaching"  for  this 
trip,  and  had  memorized  quotable  lines  from  the  poem.  As  we 
drove  up  to  the  porch,  the  landlord,  quite  as  in  the  old  way, 
appeared  at  the  door,  and  gave  us  welcome.  For,  as  I  had 
explained  to  Percy  on  the  drive  over,  the  Inn  has  been  restored 


THE    WAYSIDE    INN. 

in  recent  years,  and,  equipped  in  harmony  with   its  colonial 
fashion,  reopened  to  guests  as  an  antique  hostelry. 

We  found  the  interior,  though  freshened  and  furbished, 
retaining  most  of  its  ancient  finish  and  features.  Here  was 
the  public  parlor,  large  and  low,  where  sat  the  group  of  friends 
as  Longfellow  pictured  — 

"  Around  the  fireside  at  their 


Who  from  the  far  off  noisy  town 
Had  to  the  Wayside  Inn  come  down 
To  rest  beneath  its  old  oak  trees:"  — 


364 


LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 


with  each  his  tale  to  tell.  Here  were  the  old  tap-room,  with 
its  lattice  guard  above  the  counter;  the  low-browed  dining- 
room,  and  the  ample  kitchen.  Above  the  "  stairways  worn  " 
were  the  chambers  with  their  « creaking  and  uneven  floors." 
Here  were  the  rooms  which  had  been  occupied  by  many  an 
important  guest  in  provincial  days  when  this  was  the  Red 
Horse  Tavern,  far  famed,  patronized  by  the  processions  of 
travelers  along  the  great  road  by  stage-coach,  or  in  their  own 


OLD    DINING-ROOM,    WAYSIDE    INN. 

equipages,  some  with  postilions  and  out-riders.  From  the 
windows  we  looked  down  upon  the  picket  line  of  ancient  oaks 
on  either  side  of  the  road  eastward,  beneath  which,  as  the  local 
historian  relates,  "  Washington  and  his  retinue  passed,  and 
perhaps  Wadsworth  and  Brocklebank  when  they  sped  in 
haste  to  relieve  Sudbury  "  in  King  Philip's  War  of  1675 ;  and 
where  "soldiers  to  Ticonderoga  and  Crown  Point,  and  the 
various  expeditions  to  the  west  and  south  in  the  Revolutionary 
and  French  and  Indian  wars/'  halted  in  their  march  for  rest 
and  refreshment  at  the  tavern. 


SUDBURY  AND   CONCORD.  365 

Although  it  was  early  in  the  day,  we  followed  the  custom 
of  the  place  and  took  luncheon  in  the  quaint  dining-room; 
and  while  at  table  we  talked  of  Longfellow's  conception  of  his 
"  Tales  of  a  Wayside  Inn  "  and  the  men  arid  scenes  it  depicts. 

"  The  idea  of  making  this  Inn  the  setting  of  a  poem  after 
the  manner  of  the  '  Canterbury  Tales/  "  I  began,  "  was  sug- 
gested to  Longfellow,  perhaps,  by  hearing  of  its  unique  attrac- 


OLD    TAPROOM,    WAYSIDE    INN. 

tions  and  serene  surroundings  from  his  friends  Professors 
Daniel  Treadwell  and  Luigi  Monti  of  Cambridge,  and  the  poet 
T.  W.  Parsons,  who  had  been  in  the  habit  of  spending  the  sum- 
mer months  here  in  the  waning  days  of  Landlord  Howe,  the 
last  of  a  family  who  had  kept  the  tavern  for  more  than  a  cen- 
tury. His  own  first  visit  to  Sudbury  was  not  until  after  he 
had  b^un  the  work.  This  visit  was  on  an  Indian  summer 
day  in  1862,  when  he  drove  out  with  James  T.  Fields.  The 
house  was  no  longer  an  inn,  the  last  Landlord  Howe  having 


366  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

died  a  year  before.  They  were  shown  over  the  place  by  a 
kinswoman  of  his,  and  elsewhere  saw  the  coat-of-arms  of  the 
Howes,  and  the  old  clock,  mentioned  in  the  poem.'  Subse- 
quently the  verses  written  on  one  of  the  parlor  window-panes 
were  copied  and  sent  to  the  poet :  — 

"'The  jovial  rhymes  that  still  remain, 
Writ  near  a  century  ago 
By  the  great  Major  Molineux, 
Whom  Hawthorne  has  immortal  made.' 

"  These  '  jovial  rhymes'  read  ; 

"  '  What  do  you  think, 
Here  is  good  drink, 
Perhaps  you  may  not  know  it, 
If  not  in  haste  do  stop  and  taste 
You  merry  folks  will  show  it. 

WM.  MOLINEUX,  JR.,  ESQ. 
24th  June  1774.     Boston.' 

"  The  pleasant  allusion  to  (  My  Kinsman,  Major  Molineux/ 
drew  from  Hawthorne,  upon  the  publication  of  the  poem,  a 
graceful  note  to  Longfellow,  in  which  he  expressed  his  gratifi- 
cation at  finding  his  own  name  shining  in  the  poet's  verses,— 
'  even  as  if  I  had  been  gazing  up  at  the  moon,  and  detected  my 
own  features  in  its  profile.' 

"  The  group  of  friends  who  tell  and  listen  to  the  '  Tales ' 
were  all  real  characters.  Lyman  Howe,  the  last  of  his  line 
and  a  bachelor,  was  '  The  Landlord ' : 

"  '  Grave  in  his  aspect  and  attire  ; 
A  man  of  ancient  pedigree, 
A  Justice  of  the  Peace  was  he, 
Known  in  all  Sudbury  as  the  Squire. 

His  coat-of-arms,  well  framed  and  glazed, 
Upon  the  wall  in  colors  blazed  ; 


SUDBURY  AND   CONCORD.  367 

And  over  this,  no  longer  bright, 
Though  glimmering  with  a  latent  light, 
Was  hung  the  sword  his  grandsire  bore 
In  the  rebellious  days  of  yore, 
Down  there  at  Concord  in  the  fight.' 

"  Henry  Ware  Wales,  of  Cambridge,  a  scholar  of  promise 
who  died  young,  was  '  The  Student ' : 

"  'To  whom  all  tongues  and  lands  were  known 
„  And  yet  a  lover  of  his  own  ; 

With  many  a  social  virtue  graced, 
And  yet  a  friend  of  solitude ; 
A  man  of  such  a  genial  mood 
The  heart  of  all  things  he  embraced, 
And  yet  of  such  fastidious  taste, 
He  never  found  the  best  too  good.' 

"  Luigi  Monti,  a  Palermo  refugee,  instructor  in  Italian  at 
Harvard,  was  '  The  young  Sicilian '  : 

'"In  sight  of  Etna  born  and  bred, 
Some  breath  of  its  volcanic  air 
Was  glowing  in  his  heart  and  brain. 


His  face  was  like  -a  summer  night, 

All  flooded  with  a  dusky  light ; 

His  hands  were  small  ;  his  teeth  shone  white 

As  sea-shells,  when  he  smiled  or  spoke  ; 

His  sinews  supple  and  strong  as  oak  ; 

Clean  shaven  was  he  as  a  priest, 

Who  at  the  mass  on  Sunday  sings, 

Save  that  upon  his  upper  lip 

His  beard,  a  good  palm's  length  at  least, 

Level  and  pointed  at  the  tip, 

Shot  sideways,  like  a  swallow's  wings.' 

"  Israel  Edrehi,  a  merchant,  was  '  The  Spanish  Jew  from 

Alicant ' : 

"'Vender  of  silks  and  fabrics  rare, 
And  attar  of  rose  from  the  Levant. 
Like  an  old  Patriarch  he  appeared, 
Abraham  or  Isaac,  or  at  least 


368  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

Some  later  Prophet  or  High-Priest ; 
With  lustrous  eyes,  and  olive  skin, 
And,  wildly  tossed  from  cheeks  and  chin, 
The  tumbling  cataract  of  his  beard.' 

"  The  <  Theologian/  who 

"  '.  .  .  preached  to  all  men  everywhere 
The  Gospel  of  the  Golden  Rule, 
The  New  Commandment  given  to  men, 
Thinking  the  deed,  and  not  the  creed, 
Would  help  us  in  our  utmost  need  :  — ' 

was  Professor  Treadwell,  the  Physicist  of  Harvard. 
t{  The  '  Poet '  whose  verse 

"'Was  tender,  musical,  and  terse; 
The  inspiration,  the  delight, 
The  gleam,  the  glory,  the  swift  flight, 
Of  thoughts  so  sudden,  that  they  seem 
The  revelations  of  a  dream,— 

was  Dr.  Parsons. 

"  Last,  <  The  Musician '  - 

*'  '  Fair-haired,  blue-eyed,  his  aspect  blithe, 
His  figure  tall  and  straight  and  lithe, 
And  every  feature  of  his  face . 
Revealing  his  Norwegian  race  ; 
A  radiance,  streaming  from  within, 
Around  his  eyes  and  forehead  beamed, 
The  Angel  with  the  violin, 
Painted  by  Raphael,  he  seemed;'  — 

was  Ole  Bull. 

"  The  tavern  dates  from  near  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  quite  as  the  poet  describes : 

"  'Built  in  the  old  Colonial  day 

When  men  lived  in  a  grander  way 
With  ampler  hospitality,' 


SUDBURY  AND    CONCOHD.  369 

"The  Howes  who  erected  it  were  a  family  of  consequence 
in  the  town,  and  became  innkeepers  upon  the  loss  of  their 
fortune.  The  sign  of  the  '  Red  Horse '  was  put  out  by  Colonel 
Ezekiel  Howe,  <  The  Landlord's*  grandsire  of  Revolutionary 
fame.  Upon  his  death,  in  1796,  his  son  Adam  succeeded  him, 
and  kept  the  Inn  for  forty  years ;  when  he  died  his  son  Lyman 
became  'The  Landlord,'  and  so  continued  until  his  death  in 
1861.  He  died  suddenly,  found  dead  in  his  bed  one  morning 
by  his  long-time  faithful  negro  servant,  ( Pete.' 

"  The  scenes  about  the  tavern  in  ante-railroad  days  are  pleas- 
antly pictured  by  the  historian  of  Sudbury  : 

'"It  was  largely  patronized  by  the  up-country  marketers,  who,  by 
their  frequent  coming  and  going,  with  their  large,  canvas-topped  wagons, 
made  the  highway  .  .  .  look  like  the  outlet  of  a  busy  mart.  Stages  also 
enlivened  the  scene.  The  sound  of  the  post-horn,  as  it  announced  the 
near  approach  of  the  coach,  was  the  signal  for  the  hostler  and  house- 
maid to  prepare  refreshment  for  man  and  beast.  In  short,  few  country 
taverns  were  better  situated  than  this  to  gain  patronage  in  the  days  when 
few  towns  of  the  province  were -better  known  than  old  Sudbury.'  " 


Again  taking  carriage,  we  were  driven  over  to  the  town  center 
of  Sudbury,  there  to  take  train  for  Concord.  This  way,  rather 
than  by  South  Sudbury,  was  selected  that  we  might  make  a 
visit  in  passing  to  the  site  of  the  Sudbury  fight  in  King  Philip's 
War,  or  the  place  on  Green  Hill  where  Wads  worth  and  Brockle- 
bank  with  most  of  their  command  fell  on  an  April  morning, 
caught  by  the  Indians  in  ambush.  Captain  Wadsworth,  Percy 
was  told,  was  a  son  of  Christopher  Wadsworth,  of  Puxbury,  the 
common  ancestor  of  the  Massachusetts  and  Maine  Wradsworths, 
from  whom  came  Longfellow's  mother.  He  was  the  father  of  the 
Rev.  Benjamin  Wadsworth,  president  of  Harvard  College  from 
1725  till  his  death  in  1734,  for  whom  was  built  the  old  Presi- 
dent's House,  now  known  as  the  "  Wadsworth  House,"  on  the 
college  grounds  at  Cambridge.  Captain  Wadsworth  lived  in 
Milton,  near  Boston,  on  Wadsworth  Hill,  named  for  him,  in  the 


370 


LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 


Blue  Hills  region  (which    embraces  Aldrich's  "  Ponkapog,"  I 
reminded  Percy) ;  and  he  had  marched  his  command  from  that 

town  to  the  re- 
lief of  Sudbury. 
President  Wads- 
worth  was  born 
on  Wadsworth 
Hill. 

We  reached 
the  point  where 
the  action  took 
place  about  a 
mile  south  of 
the  village  cen- 
ter. It  is  within 
an  old  burying 
ground,  the  cen- 
tral feature  of 
which  is  the 

WADSWORTH     MONUMENT. 

granite  monu- 
ment to  Wadsworth  and  his  soldiers,  —  some  distance  from  the 
place  of  their  original  burial,  in  a  common  grave.  This  monu- 
ment, we  saw,  was  erected  by  the  State  of  Massachusetts,  half 
a  century  ago ;  it  is  in  place  of  a  simpler  one  set  up  by  Presi- 
dent Wadsworth  about  1730. 


It  was  a  short  railroad  ride  from  Sudbury  to  Concord  Junc- 
tion, and  thence  to  the  Concord  station  on  the  Fitchburg  line. 
This  station  is  on  a  side  of  the  town  which  we  had  not  visited 
on  our  historic  pilgrimage  to  Concord,  and  so  the  approach  was 
altogether  new  to  Percy.  Very  soon,  too,  we  came  upon  land- 
marks not  seen  on  that  previous  visit.  The  first  street  which 
we  entered,  in  the  direction  of  Main  Street,  the  way  to  the  vil- 
lage center,  indicated  neighboring  literary  landmarks,  for  this 


SUDBURT  AND   CONCORD.  371 

was  Thoreau  Street.  And  true  to  the  indication,  when  we 
turned  the  corner  into  Main  Street,  a  plain,  yellow  house,  se- 
cluded by  a  hedge  of  trees,  was  pointed  out  to  Percy  as  the 
"  Thoreau  house,"  home  of  Henry  David  Thoreau  (born  in  Con- 
cord, 1817  — died  there,  1862). 

Here,  he  was  told,  Thoreau  lived  during  the  last  twelve  years 
of  his  life ;  and  here  he  died  of  consumption,  the  result  of  ex- 
posure on  a  bleak  November  day  a  year  and  a  half  before,  when 
tramping  through  the  woods  in  the  snow  •"  counting  the  rings 
on  trees."  On  the  opposite  side  of  the  street  earlier  lived 
Thoreau's  rare  companion  and  first  biographer,  William  Ellery 
Channing  (born  1818  —  died  1902),  a  nephew  of  the  «  great " 
Channing,  himself  a  poet,  whose  wife  was  Margaret  Fuller's 
sister.  Channing's  was  a  house  with  a  garden  sloping  to  the 
river.  At  the  foot  of  this  garden,  under  a  group  of  trees, 
Thoreau  moored  his  boat,  and  thence  started  on  his  river  voy- 
ages. In  this  same  part  of  the  town  is  the  present  home  of 
Thoreau's  later  biographer  and  literary  executor,  Franklin  B. 
Sanborn  (born  in  Hampton  Falls,  N.H.,  1831—),  the  last 
remaining  of  the  "  Concord  group "  who  gave  this  town  its 
unique  distinction.  Thoreau's  birthplace  was  a  mile  or  more 
beyond  the  village,  to  the  eastward,  in  country  parts.  That 
was  the  home  of  his  maternal  grandmother:  a  typical  New 
England  farmhouse,  standing  on  the  old  "Virginia  road,"  a 
back  way  to  Lexington.  Before  the  family  came  to  this  Main- 
Street  house  they  had  lived  for  a  long  time  in  a  little  house 
on  the  village  square.  Thoreau's  "hermitage"  was  on  the 
shore  of  Walden  Pond  a  mile  and  more  to  the  southward  of 
the  village,  in  a  piece  of  woodland  belonging  to  Emerson ;  and 
devotees  of  the  poet-naturalist  have  marked  its  site  by  a  cairn. 

"  Thoreau,"  I  remarked,  after  thus  enumerating  his  land- 
marks, "  was  the  only  one  of  the  '  Concord  group 7  of  Concord 
birth.  He  was  of  a  family,  as  Sanborn  shows,  settled  in  Con- 
cord a  hundred  years  ago.  His  grandfather  Thoreau,  of 
French  descent,  came  from  the  island  of  Jersey  to  New  Eng- 


372  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

land  in  1773,  and  a  few  years  after  married  in  Boston  a  Scotch- 
woman. He  moved  his  family  to  this  town  in  the  year  1800, 
after  his  wife's  death,  and  the  next  year  he  died,  of  consump- 
tion, in  his  home  on  the  village  square.  Thoreau's  father  was 
a  store-keeper,  then  a  pencil-maker,  pencil-making  being  at  one 
time  quite  ah  industry  in  Concord ;  and  this  was  the  family 
occupation  till  after  Thoreau's  death,  his  sister  Sophia  contin- 
uing it  for  some  years.  Sanborn  describes  the  father  as  a 
'  small,  deaf,  and  unobtrusive  man,'  leading  a  *  plodding,  unam- 
bitious, and  respectable  life/  The  mother  was  a  daughter  of  a 
New  England  clergyman,  an  active  body,  and  <  one  of  the  most 
unceasing  talkers  ever  seen  in  Concord.'  She  was  fond  of 
dress,  and  had  a  weakness  for  ribbons,  apropos  of  which  San- 
born  relates  this  droll  anecdote,  illustrative  also  of  Concord 
frankness :  One  day  in  1857,  when  Mrs.  Thoreau  was  seventy 
years  old,  she  called  with  her  daughter  Sophia  upon  Miss  Mary 
Emerson  (the  austere  aunt  of  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson),  who  was 
then  eighty-four,  wearing  bonnet  ribbons  of  a  good  length  and 
of  a  bright  color,  —  perhaps  yellow.  During  the  entire  call 
Miss  Emerson  kept  her  eyes  shut.  As  Mrs.  Thoreau  and  her 
daughter  rose  to  go  the  little  old  lady  said,  '  Perhaps  you 
noticed,  Mrs.  Thoreau,  that  I  closed  my  eyes  during  your  call. 
I  did  so  because  I  did  not  wish  to  look  on  the  ribbons  you  are 
wearing,  so  unsuitable  for  a  child  of  God  and  a  person  of  your 
years ! ' 

"  After  his  return  from  college,  Thoreau  held  fast  to  Con- 
cord, with  the  exception  of  a  few  months  (in  1843)  spent  at 
Staten  Island,  New  York,  as  tutor  of  the  sons  of  William 
Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo's  brother,  and  his  absences  on  long 
walking  excursions.  No  Concordiah  was  more  intimately  asso- 
ciated with  the  town.  He  fitted  for  Harvard  at  the  '  Concord 
Academy '  (now  extinct),  and  afterward  taught  in  the  academy. 
He  attended  lectures  at  the  «  Concord  Lyceum '  when  a  boy, 
and  himself  lectured  there  in  the  regular  winter  courses  almost 
every  season  for  twenty  years,  beginning  the  year  following 


SUDEUBY  AND   CONCORD.  373 

his  graduation,  which  was  in  1837.  His  acquaintance  with 
nature  about  Concord  was  of  the  earliest.  He  knew  the  coun- 
try, Emerson  has  said,  '  like  a  fox  or  a  bird,  and  passed  through 
it  as  freely  by  paths  of  his  own.'  When  on  his  walks  as 
Emerson  pictured  him  :  — 

"  '  Under  his  arm  he  carried  an  old  music-book  to  press  plants  ;  in  his 
pocket  his  diary  and  pencil,  a  spy-glass  for  birds,  microscope,  jack-knife, 
and  twine.  He  wore  straw  hat,  stout  shoes,  strong  gray  trousers,  to  brave 
scrub-oaks  and  smilax,  and  to  climb  a  tree  for  a  hawk's  or  squirrel's  nest. 
He  waded  into  the  pool  for  the  water-plants,  and  his  strong  legs  were  no 
insignificant  part  of  his  armor.  His  intimacy  with  animals  suggested  what 
Thomas  Fuller  records  of  Butler  the  apiologist,  **  that  either  he  had  told 
the  bees  things  or  the  bees  had  told  him."  Snakes  coiled  round  his  leg, 
the  fishes  swam  into  his  hand,  and  he  took  them  out  of  the  water.  He 
pulled  the  woodchuck  out  of  its  hole  by  the  tail,  and  took  the  foxes  under 
his  protection  from  the  hunters. ' 

"  Iii  these  explorations,  and  also  in  his  extended  foot-jour- 
neys among  the  mountains  and  along  the  seashore  of  New 
England,  Sauborn  tells  us,  '  his  habits  were  those  of  the  expe- 
rienced hunter,  though  he  seldom  used  a  gun  in  his  years  of 
manhood/  On  this  point  he  himself  wrote  in  <  Walden ' :  <  As 
for  fowling,  during  the  last  years  that  I  carried  a  gun  my 
excuse  was  that  I  was  studying  ornithology,  and  sought  only 
new  or  rare  birds.  But  I  am  now  inclined  to  think  there  is  a 
finer  way  of  studying  ornithology  than  this.  It  requires  so 
much  closer  attention  to  the  habits  of  the  birds  that,  if  for  that 
reason  only,  I  have  been  willing  to  omit  the  gun.'  *  He  knew 
how,'  said  Emerson,  *  to  sit  immovable,  a  part  of  the  rock  he 
rested  on,  until  the  bird,  the  reptile,  the  fish,  which  had  retired 
from  him,  should  come  back  and  resume  its  habits,  —  nay, 
moved  by  curiosity,  should  come  to  him  and  watch  him/ 

"Thoreau's  close  relations  with  Emerson  began  the  year 
of  his  return  from  college,  and  continued  lifelong.  For  two 
years,  from  1841  to  1843,  he  was  an  inmate  of  Emerson's 
household,  managing  the  garden  and  doing  other  hand-work 
for  his  friend,  as  Sanbom  states  ;  and  again  in  1847-'48  he 


374  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

had  charge  of  the  household  affairs  during  Emerson's  absence 
in  England.  His  earlier  publications,  apparently,  were  under 
Emerson's  direction. 

"  He  contributed  to  nearly  every  number  of  the  J>lalt  both 
verses  and  essays  written  originally  in  his  l  journal/  which  he 
began  keeping  in  1837  and  continued  to  the  end  of  his  days. 
His  '  Walk  to  Wachusett '  first  appeared  in  the  Boston  Miscel- 
lany in  1843.  The  '  Week  on  the  Concord  and  Merrimac 
Rivers '  was  his  first  book  published ;  portions  of  it  having 
been  first  printed  in  the  Dial.  The  editing  of  this  book  was 
his  principal  occupation  during  his  life  in  the  hermitage  on  the 
Walden  shore.  It  was  not  brought  out,  however,  till  1849, 
some  months  after  he  had  left  the  hut.  It  was  published  at 
his  own  expense,  and  involved  him  in  debt  which  took  the 
labors  of  several  years  to  cancel.  It  was  to  earn  money  to 
meet  these  costs  that  he  became  a  surveyor.  The  book  did  not 
sell,  but  he  took  its  failure  philosophically.  When  more  than 
half  of  the  edition  of  one  thousand  copies  came  back  to  him 
unsold,  he  said  gayly  to  his  friend  Sanborn'that  he  had  added 
seven  hundred  volumes  to  his  library,  all  of  his  own  compo- 
sition ! 

"  <  Walden,'  published  in  1854,  was  a  record  of  the  life  at 
the  hermitage,  or,  as  Channing  puts  it,  the  log-book  of  the 
woodland  cruise.  This  hermit's  life  covered  about  two  years 
and  a  half,  from  the  summer  of  1845.  The  hut  was  a  plain 
and  comfortable  affair  of  lumber  hewn  by  Thoreau  from 
Emerson's  woods.  It  was  convenient,  says  Channing,  for  shel- 
ter, sleep,  and  meditation.  *  It  had  no  lock  on  the  door,  no 
curtain  to  the  window,  and  belonged  to  nature  nearly  as  much 
as  to  man.'  Thoreau's  life  here  was  not  the  life  of  a  misan- 
thrope ;  nor  was  it  that  of  a  world-hating  recluse.  He  came  to 
the  woods,  he  said,  because  he  wished  to  live  deliberately,  to 
front  only  the  essential  facts  of  life,  and  see  if  he  could  not 
learn  what  it  had  to  teach  ;  also  to  *  transact  some  private  busi- 
ness with  the  fewest  obstacles.'  This  private  business  was  his 


8UDBURT  AND   CONCORD. 


375 


studies  and  his  writings  ;  when  it  was  completed  he  abandoned 
his  hut.  He  was  strong  in  his  convictions  and  uncompromis- 
ing. He  cheerfully  spent  a  night  in  jail  for  refusing  to  pay  his 
tax  to  the  town  tax-gatherer,  because  it  '  went  to  support  slavery 
in  South  Carolina.' 

"  Thoreau's  fame  came  after  his  death.    During  his  life  only 
a  small  world  knew  him,  and  his  income  from  authorship  was 


HOUSE   OF    FRANK    B.    SANBORN. 

not  half  enough  in  most  years,  Sanborn  estimates,  to  supply 
even  his  few  wants.  With  the  publication  of  his  <  Excursions ' 
the  year  following  his  death,  'The  Maine  Woods'  in  1864, 
<  Cape  Cod '  in  1865,  <  A  Yankee  in  Canada '  in  1866,  and  the 
later  Thoreau  books,  his  name  became  known  in  widening  cir- 
cles, and  his  unique  place  in  American  literature  was  at  length 
established." 

This  Main-Street  house,  I  added,  as  we  turned  to  our  next 
subject,  became  in  later  years  the  last  Concord  home  of  the 
Alcotts.  It  was  purchased  by  the  eldest  daughter,  Anna 
Bronson  (Alcott)  Pratt,  and  Louisa.  Here  Mrs.  Alcott,  the 


376  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

mother,  died;  and  here  Bronson  Alcott  spent  his  declining 
years. 

Our  next  subject  was  naturally  Thoreau's  friend  Sanborn, 
whose  house  I  had  said  is  near  by.-  We  came  to  it  a  few  rods 
off  Main  Street,  on  Elm  Street,  by  a  bend  of  Sudbury  River. 
In  its  architecture  and  setting,  —  a  red  house,  large  and  sym- 
metrical, vine-clad  and  umbrageous,  —  it  has,  like  its  master, 
an  air  and  aspect  which  distinguishes  it  among  its  fellows,  and 
arrests  the  passer's  eye.  Within,  the  best  room  is  the  work- 
room, the  author-journalist's  study  packed  with  books.  Here 
were  written  the  biographies  of  Emerson,  Thoreau,  and  Alcott, 
and  of  John  Brown  of  Osawatomie. 

"  Mr.  Sanborn's  Concord  life,"  I  related  in  answering  Percy's 
questions,  "  began  immediately  after  his  graduation  from  Har- 
vard -in  1855,  when  he  came  here,  at  Emerson's  suggestion,  to 
open  a  private  school  in  the  higher  branches.  He  took  rooms 
first  in  Channing's  house  across  the  way  from  Thoreau's,  and 
soon  his  acquaintance  with  Thoreau,  begun  when  he  was  in 
college,  —  through  the  publication  of  a  review  of  *  Walden ' 
and  the  <  Week '  in  the  college  periodical  which  he  was  at  the 
time  editing,  —  ripened  into  a  lasting  friendship.  For  two 
years  or  more,  he  has  told  us,  he  dined  with  Thoreau  almost 
daily,  and  often  joined  in  his  walks  and  river  voyages,  or  swam 
with  him  in  Concord  waters. 

"  Sanborn  was  an  accomplished  and  successful  Concord 
schoolmaster,  but  his  chief  interest  was  centered  in  the  anti- 
slavery  cause,  into  which  he  threw  himself  with  almost  reck- 
less zeal.  In  1856  he  was  secretary  of  the  Free  Kansas 
Committee  of  Massachusetts.  He  took  up  the  cause  of  John 
Brown,  and  was  one  of  the  handful  of  Massachusetts  men 
whom  Brown  took  into  his  confidence  when  planning  the  raid 
on  Harper's  Ferry  in  1859.  It  was  at  his  house  that  Brown 
spent  a  portion  of  his  last  day  in  Concord,  and  thence  started 
off  at  noon  for  the  fatal  Virginia  campaign.  In  April  of  the 
following  year  Sanborn  was  summoned  by  the  United  States 


KUDBURY  AND   CONCORD. 


377 


Senate  to  appear  before  its  committee  to  testify,  as  a  possible 
accessory  before  the  fact  in  that  raid.  He  refused  to  go,  and 
a  deputy  marshal  with  assistants  appeared  to  arrest  the  Con- 
cord schoolmaster.  By  a  ruse  they  got  him  outside  his  house, 
and,  handcuffing  him,  would  have  carried  him  off  in  a  waiting 
carriage,  had  not  his  sister  attacked  them  and  their  team,  and 
by  her  outcries  summoned  a  crowd  of  infuriated  townspeople 
to  his  defense.  A  writ  of  habeas  corpus  quickly  issued  by  his 
neighbor  Judge  E.  Rock- 
wood  Hoar,  brought  him 
before  the  Massachusetts 
Supreme  Court  at  Boston, 
and  he  was  released  on  the 
ground  that  the  warrant 
was  not  served  by  the  per- 
son to  whom  it  was  di- 
rected, —  the  sergeant-at- 
arms  of  the  Senate.  When 
he  came  back  to  town  he 
was  received  with  a  salute 
of  cannon,  and  a  public 
meeting  at  which  T.  W. 
Higginson,  one  of  his  as- 
sociates in  Brown's  confi- 
dence, and  others, 
made  congratula- 
tory remarks.  ^2 

"  Besides  his 
literary  and  jour- 
nalistic work  Mr.  Sanborn  has  contributed  much  to  the  advance- 
ment of  State  charities  and  prison  reform,  upon  which  his 
writings  in  reports  and  other  papers  are  voluminous.  He  was 
one  of  the  founders  of  the  American  Social  Science  Association 
in  whose  development  he  has  had  a  constantly  leading  hand. 
He  was  a  founder,  also,  if  not  the  chie'f  instigator  of  that  unique 


F.    B.    SANBORN. 


378  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

institution,  the  Concord  School  of  Philosophy,  which  flour- 
ished, largely  through  his  skillful  conduct  of  its  affairs  as 
secretary,  for  the  decade  between  1878  and  1888.  He  was  one 
of  the  lecturers  before  the  school;  and  he  has  lectured  on 
learned  topics  at  Cornell  and  Wellesley  colleges.  His  journal- 
istic work  has  appeared  in  the  editorship  of  a  political  and 
literary  journal  in  Boston,  —  the  Commonwealth, — during  the 
latter  part  of  the  Civil  War,  and  in  the  independent  Springfield 
Republican  for  upward  of  thirty  years.  He  wields  a  bold  and 
pungent  pen." 

Returning  to  Main  Street  we  strolled  on  toward  the  village 
center,  passing,  about  an  eighth  of  a  mile  beyond,  the  Public 
Library  embellished  within  with  portraits  and  busts  of  Con- 
cord authors  ;  and  nearly  opposite,  the  old  mansion  house  of 
that  good  and  beloved  citizen  of  Massachusetts  "Squire" 
Samuel  Hoar  (born  1778  —  died  1856),  in  which  were  born 
his  eminent  sons,  Judge  E.  Rock  wood  Hoar  (born  1816  — 
died  1895),  and  United  States  Senator  George  F.  Hoar  (born 
1826—). 

From  the  center,  where  Percy  felt  at  home  since  he  recalled 
its  historic  features  over  which  we  had  lingered  when  here 
before,  we  proceeded  at  once  to  the  Emerson  house.  At  the 
turn  from  the  square  to  the  old  Boston,  or  Lexington,  road,  he 
noticed  a  new  structure  in  place  of  the  historic  church  behind 
the  tablet  near  the  site  of  the  meeting-house  in  which  the 
Provincial  Congress  sat ;  and  I  told  of  the  burning  of  the  old 
church  in  April,  1900  ;  adding  a  word  of  commendation  of  the 
work  by  the  builders  in  faithfully  reproducing  the  old  struc- 
ture, rather  than  creating  a  modern  affair,  which  Percy  heartily 
approved. 

He  was  much  pleased  to  find  the  Emerson  place  and  its 
immediate  surroundings  unchanged.  We  passed  as  before 
through  the  gate  and  along  the  flagged-walk,  between  the 
groups  of  lofty  chestnuts,  to  the  entrance  porch.  The  front 
room  at  the  right  of  the  long  hall  running  through  the  middle 


SUDBURY  AND   CONCORD.  379 

of  the  house,  which  was  Emerson's  principal  indoor  study,  was 
as  of  old,  pleasant  with  pictures  and  books.  On  the  mahogany 
center-table  still  lay  his  pen  by  the  side  of  his  morocco  writing- 
pad.  On  either  side  of  the  ample  fire-place  doors  opened  to 
the  south  parlor,  with  its  old-fashioned  furnishings.  On  the 
opposite  side  of  the  hall  were  the  library  room  and  the  dining- 
room.  Above  stairs,  over  the  study,  was  the  room  in  which 
Emerson  died.  Back  of  the  house,  at  the  south,  was  the  garden 
once  so  bright  with  old-fashioned  flowers,  hollyhocks,  roses, 
and  shrubs.  In  the  distance  beyond  the  brook  and  fields,  lay 
the  greater  garden,  —  the  pines  on  the  shores  of  Walden,  and 
the  woodland  on  the  farther  shore  running  up  to  a  rocky 
pinnacle,  of  which  the  poet  wrote :  — 

"  My  garden  is  a  forest  ledge 

Which  older  forests  bound  ; 
The  banks  slope  down  to  the  blue  lake-edge, 
Then  plunge  to  depths  profound. 

Self-sown  my  stately  garden  grows  ; 

The  wind,  and  wind-blown  seed, 
Cold  April  rain  and  colder  snows 

My  hedges  plant  and  feed." 

These  woodland  ranges,  as  his  son  says  in  the  affectionate 
memoir  of  "Emerson  at  Concord,"  were  to  him  a  temple 
visited  almost  daily,  and  "there  he  waited  for  the  thoughts, 
the  oracles,  which  he  was  sent  into  the  world  to  report."  The 
woods  were  his  real  study.  Sometimes  he  took  his  note-book 
with  him,  but  more  often  he  carried  in  his  mind  the  thoughts 
which  came  to  him  there,  till  he  had  returned  to  the  house  study 
and  recorded  them  in  his  journal.  "  Even  in  the  winter 
storms,"  Dr.  Emerson,  the  son,  adds,  "  he  was  no  stranger 
to  the  woods,  and  the  early  journals  show  that  -  he  liked  to 
walk  alone  at  night  for  the  inspiration  he  ever  found  in  the 
stars." 

These  details  were  imparted  to  Percy  as  we  strolled  about 


380  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

the  place  after  our  call.  Then  we  reviewed  Emerson's  life 
here. 

"  He  was  but  a  year  past  thirty,"  I  said,  "  when  he  estab- 
lished himself  permanently  here  in  Concord,  the  home  of  his 
ancestors.  This  was  in  the  autumn  of  1835,  after  having 
boarded  some  time  at  the  old  Manse  with  his  step-grandfather's 
family.  He  had  just  married  Miss  Lydia  Jackson,  of  Plym- 
outh, his  second  wife,  and  their  wedding  journey  had  been 
the  ride  up  from  Plymouth  to  the  new  home  the  day  after  the 

nuptials,  in  the  chaise  in 
which  he  had  driven  down 
from  Concord,  alone,  on  the 
wedding-day. 

"He  had  closed  his 
career  as  a  minister  be- 
cause of  the  unreadiness  of 
the  churches  to  accept  his 
conditions  that  public 
prayer  in  the  pulpit  should 
not  be  expected  of  him  as 
a  regular  act  of  devotion, 
but  only  when  he  was 
moved  to  it ;  and  that  the 
form  of  the  Communion 
service  be  modified.  He 
had  already  begun  the  work 

RALPH    WALDO    EMERSON,    I  845.  Qf  the  ^^  ^  ^  larger 

and  freer  field,  which  he  followed  with  scarcely  a  season's 
interruption  for  nearly  half  a  century.  He  had  written  his 
first  book,  '  Nature,'  the  year  before,  and  had  fully  entered 
upon  the  scholar's  life.  He  had  spoken  as  the  orator  of  the 
town  at  its  celebrations.  He  had  spent  nearly  a  year  in  Europe 
(1832-'33),  whither  he  went  to  <  see  in  the-  flesh '  Coleridge, 
Wordsworth,  and  others  whose  works  he  had  hung  over  in  his 
chamber  at  home,  but  most  especially  to  seek  out  Thomas 


SUDBURY  AND   CONCORD.  381 

Carlyle  among  the  Scottish  moors,  inspired  to  this  pilgrimage 
by  reading  in  English  reviews  the  writings  of  that  man  of  let- 
ters, —  then  new  and  slightly  recognized. 

"  This  was  a  genuine  scholar's  pilgrimage,  and  from  it  sprung 
the  ardent  friendship  between  these  two  original  characters 
which  lasted  to  the  end  of  their  lives.  Upon  his  return  home 
ensued  their  life-long,  intimate  correspondence  which  fills  two 
thick  volumes.  Emerson  welcomed  and  introduced  Carlyle' s 
works  to  America  before  they  had  become  much  known  in 
England.  He  repeatedly  urged  Carlyle  to  visit  the  United 
States,  and  to  come  and  live  with  him  at  this  Concord  home. 
Soon  after  he  and  his  wife  had  become  settled  here  he  wrote  : 
'  The  house  is  not  large,  but  convenient  and  very  elastic.  The 
more  hearts  (specially  great  hearts)  it  holds,  the  better  it  looks 
and  feels.  ...  So  know  now  that  your  rooms  in  America 
wait  for  you,  and  that  my  wife  is  making  ready  a  closet  for 
Mrs.  Carlyle/  Fourteen  years  after  their  first  meeting  they 
met  for  the  second  and  last  time,  when  Emerson  went  to  Eng- 
land to  lecture  in  1847.  Immediately  upon  his  landing  he 
hastened  to  the  Carlyles'  house,  then  in  Chelsea,  reaching  it  at 
ten  at  night.  'The  door  was  opened  by  Jane  Carlyle/  his 
journal  records,  '  and  the  man  himself  was  behind  her  with  a 
lamp  in  the  hall.  They  were  very  little  changed  from  their 
old  selves  of  the  year  before  when  I  left  them  at  Craigenput- 
tock.  "  Well,"  said  Carlyle,  "here  we  are  shoveled  together 
again."'  They  had  a  'wide  talk'  that  night  till  nearly  one, 
and  at  breakfast  next  morning. 

"  Emerson  chose  this  spot  for  his  home  because  of  its  close- 
ness to  the  stage  route  to  Boston  (it  was  before  the  first  railroad 
was  cut  through  the  country  town),  whither  he  had  to  journey 
to  his  lecture  engagements  ;  and  because  of  its  retired  and  rural 
situation,  on  the  edge  of  the  village,  backed  by  the  meadows 
and  the  distant  woodland  ranges  of  Walden.  The  estate  in- 
cluded the  house,  newly  built,  and  two  acres  of  land.  He  soon 
enlarged  it  by  the  purchase  of  the  grove  of  pines  extending  to 


382  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

the  pond,  and  the  woodland  tract  with  its  rocky  pinnacle  on  the 
farther  shore.  He  never  regretted  this  choice  of  a  dwelling- 
place,  his  son  says.  It  proved  '  exactly  fitted  for  his  purpose ; 
gave  privacy  and  company  enough,  and  the  habit  of  the  town 
favored  the  simple  living  which  he  valued.7 

"  Emerson  was  a  good  neighbor  and  a  good  citizen,  holding 
it  l  a  privilege  to  bear  his  part  of  civic  duties  and  neighborly 
relations.'  He  was  interested  in  the  public  schools,  and  served 
for  several  years  as  a  school-committee  man.  He  fostered  the 
Concord  Athenaeum,  —  the  village  reading-room  open  to  the 
citizens  for  a  small  fee.  He  was  a  helpful  member  of  the  vil- 
lage Social  Circle.  He  attended  the  town  meetings,  and  took 
pleasure  in  watching  the  plain  men  of  the  town  manage  its 
affairs.  He  went  to  political  meetings,  *  partly  for  the  rough 
training  good  for  a  scholar/  (  always  as  a  learner,  .  .  .  but  only 
as  to  details,  for  even  his  modesty  did  not  accept  the  doctrine 
that  the  scholar  .  .  .  must  learn  his  duty  from  the  callous 
politician  or  man  of  affairs.'  He  early  joined  the  fire  associa- 
tion, and  went  '  in  the  neighborly  fashion  of  those  days  to  fires 
in  the  woods,  and  fought  fire  with  his  pine  bough  .  .  .  side  by 
side  with  his  neighbors.'  He  liked  to  talk  with  the  farmers,  and 
with  horsemen  and  stage-drivers  whose  '  racy  vernacular  and 
picturesque  brag '  he  enjoyed  l  as  much  as  the  cautious  under- 
estimate '  of  the  former.  <  On  his  walks  he  fell  in  with  pot- 
hunters and  fishermen,  wood-choppers  and  drivers  of  cattle, 
and  liked  to  exchange  a  few  words  with  them,  and  he  always 
observed  the  old-time  courtesy  of  the  road,  the  salutation  to 
the  passer-by,  even  if  a  stranger.7  In  the  village  <  he  looked 
sometimes  with  a  longing  eye  at  the  group  of  village  worthies 
exchanging  dry  remarks  round  the  grocery  stove ;  but  he  knew 
it  was  of  no  use  for  him  to  tarry,  for  the  fact  that  he  was  a 
scholar  and  clergyman  would  silence  the  oracles/ 

"  All  of  his  relations  to  the  town  were  pleasant.  '  The 
people  of  the  village  felt  his  friendly  and  modest  attitude  to 
them  and  were  always  kind,'  —  such  is  his  son's  testimony. 


SUDBURY  AND  CONCORD.  383 

When  in  his  latter  years,  in  the  summer  of  1872,  his  house  was 
nearly  destroyed  by  a  fire,  they  showed  their  affection  for  him, 
and  their  solicitude,  in  countless  ways.  Upon  his  return  from 
abroad,  where  generous  friends  had  sent  him  with  his  daughter 
Ellen,  while  the  house  was  rebuilding,  they  welcomed  him  home 
with  a  demonstration  that  touched  the  old  scholar's  heart.  The 
bells  of  the  town  were  joyously  rung  while  the  townspeople  in 
a  great  throng  greeted  him  as  he  stepped  from  the  train,  and 
escorted  him  under  a  triumphal  arch  to  the  restored  house. 
'  He  was  greatly  moved/  runs  the  son's  brief  account,  '  but  with 
characteristic  modesty  insisted  that  this  was  a  welcome  to  his 
daughter  and  could  not  be  meant  for  him.  Although  he  had 
felt  quite  unable  to  make  any  speech,  yet  seeing  his  friendly 
townspeople,  old  and  young  in  groups  watching  him  enter  his 
own  door  once  more,  he  turned  suddenly  back  and  going  to  the 
gate  said :  "  My  friends,  I  know  that  this  is  not  a  tribute  to 
an  old  man  and  his  daughter  returned  to  their  house,  but  to  the 
common  blood  of  us  all  —  one  family — in  Concord."' 

"  Emerson's  life  of  forty -eight  years  here  moved  on  placidly. 
Though  dwelling  apart,  as  his  occupations  required  and  his 
tastes  dictated,  he  was  never  out  of  touch  with  the  world. 
Those  lines  so  often  quoted 

"'Good-by,  proud  World,  I'm  going  home; 

Thou  art  not  my  friend,  and  I'm  not  thine;'  — 

were  written  in  his  youth,  when  he  was  a  schoolmaster  in  his 
brother  William's  ' finishing  school '  for  girls,  in  Boston ;  they 
are  sometimes  assumed  to  be  his  note  of  renunciation,  but  had 
no  such  significance.  Through  his  discourses  before  literary 
societies,  and  his  lectures  in  lyceums  all  over  the  country, 
he  was  brought  into  a  contact  with  minds  and  work  of  all 
sorts  of  men  and  women,  which,  his  son  says,  he  highly 
valued. 

"Most  of  his  published  work  issued  from  this  house. 
<  Nature '  was  published  during  his  first  year  here.  In  1837 


384  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

he  wrote  here  those  immortal  lines  of  the  '  Battle  Monument ' 
dedication  hymn : 

"  'By  the  rude  bridge  that  arched  the  flood, 

Their  flag  to  April's  breeze  unfurled, 
Here  once  the  embattled  farmer  stood, 
And  fired  the  shot  heard  round  the  world.' 

"  The  same  year  he  wrote  the  inspiring  Phi  Beta  Kappa 
oration,  '  Man  Thinking '  (which  appears  in  his  collected  works 
as  'The  American  Scholar'),  with  its  call  to  the  American 
intellect  to  throw  off  its  foreign  shackles  and  assert  its  intel- 
lectual freedom.  The  delivery  of  this  oration  at  Cambridge  in 
August  made  a  great  commotion  in  our  then  contracted  literary 
circles.  Lowell  thirty  years  after  characterized  it  as  '  an  event 
without  any  former  parallel  in  our  literary  annals,  a  scene  to 
be  always  treasured  in  the  memory  for  its  picturesqueness  and 
its  inspiration.'  Holmes  called  it  'the  declaration  of  inde- 
pendence of  American  literature.' 

"Then  came  Emerson's  leadership  in  the  Transcendental 
movement,  with  his  declaration  of  the  doctrine  in  his  address 
before  the  Harvard  Divinity  School  in  1838,  which  aroused  a 
roar  of  criticism  from  the  conservatives.  Then  the  *  Tran- 
scendental Club,'  evolved  from  '  The  Symposium,'  which  was 
started  in  Boston  shortly  before  by  Alcott  and  others,  devel- 
oped here,  and  resulted  in  those  famous  gatherings  in  Emerson's 
library  of  the  humorously  termed  <  Apostles  of  the  Newness.' 
Meanwhile  The  Dial,  mainly  sustained  by  Emerson,  and  in 
good  part  edited  here,  ran  its  glowing  and  costly  career  of  four 
years.  In  1841  Emerson's  second  book  —  the  first  series  of 
the  'Essays'  —  came  out  from  this  study;  three  years  after- 
ward, the  second  series  appeared.  Now  the  '  Concord  group,' 
Emerson  being  the  loadstar,  had  ripened,  and  in  his  library 
were  held  those  '  Monday  evenings,'  one  of  which  George  Wil- 
liam Curtis,  then  a  youthful  Concordian,  described  in  this 
rollicking  fashion,"  —  and  I  read  this  account  from  Curtis's 
"  Homes  of  American  Authors  "  : 


SUDBURY  AND   CONCORD.  385 

"  *  It  was  in  the  year  1845  that  a  circle  of  persons  of  various  ages,  and 
differing  very  much  in  everything  but  sympathies,  found  themselves  in 
Concord.  Toward  the  end  of  the  autumn  Mr.  Emerson  suggested  that 
they  should  meet  every  Monday  evening  through  the  winter  in  his  library. 
"Monsieur  Aubepine,"  "Miles  Coverdale,"  and  other  phantoms,  since 
generally  known  as  Nathaniel  Hawthorne,  then  occupied  the  Old  Manse  ; 
the  inflexible  Henry  Thoreau,  a  scholastic  and  pastoral  Orson,  then  living 
among  the  blackberry -pastures  of  Walden  Pond  ;  Plato  Skiinpole  [Alcott], 
then  sublimely  meditating  impossible  summer-houses  in  the  little  house  on 
the  Boston  road  ;  the  enthusiastic  agriculturist  and  Brook  Farmer  already 
mentioned  [George  Bradford],  then  an  inmate  of  Emerson's  house,  who 
added  the  genial  cultivation  of  a  scholar  to  the  amenities  of  a  natural 
gentleman  ;  a  sturdy  farmer-neighbor  [Edmund  Hosmer],  who  had  bravely 
fought  his  way  through  inherited  embarrassment  to  the  small  success  of  a 
New  England  husbandman  ;  .  .  .  two  city  youths  [Curtis,  and  his  brother 
Burrill]  ready  for  the  fragments  from  the  feast  of  wit  and  wisdom ;  and 
the  host  himself  composed  this  club.  Ellery  Channing,  who  had  that 
winter  harnessed  his  Pegasus  to  the  New  York  Tribune,  was  a  kind  of 
corresponding  member.  The  news  of  this  world  was  to  be  transmitted 
through  his  eminently  practical  genius,  arid  the  club  deemed  itself  com- 
petent to  take  charge  of  tidings  from  all  other  spheres. 

"  *  I  went  the  first  evening,  very  much  as  Ixion  may  have  gone  to  his 
banquet.  The  philosophers  sat  dignified  and  erect.  There  was  a  con- 
strained but  very  amiable  silence,  which  had  the  impertinence  of  a  tacit 
inquiry,  seeming  to  say,  "  Who  will  now  proceed  to  say  the  finest  thing 
that  has  ever  been  said  ?  "  It  was  quite  involuntary  and  unavoidable,  for 
the  members  lacked  that  fluent  social  genius  without  which  a  club  is 
impossible.  It  was  a  congress  of  oracles  on  the  one  hand,  and  of  curious 
listeners  upon  the  other.  I  vaguely  remember  that  the  Orphic  Alcott 
invaded  the  Sahara  of  silence  with  a  solemn  u  saying,"  to  which,  after  due 
pause,  the  honorable  member  for  Blackberry  Pastures  responded  by  some 
keen  and  graphic  observation  ;  while  the  Olympian  host,  anxious  that  so 
much  material  should  be  spun  into  something,  beamed  smiling  encourage- 
ment upon  all  parties.  But  the  conversation  became  more  and  more 
staccato.  Miles  Coverdale  [Hawthorne],  a  statue  of  might  and  silence, 
sat,  a  little  removed,  under  a  portrait  of  Dante,  gazing  imperturbably 
upon  the  group  ;  and  as  he  sat  in  the  shadow,  his  dark  hair  and  eyes  and 
suit  of  sables  made  him,  in  that  society,  the  black  thread  of  mystery  which 
he  weaves  into  his  stories,  while  the  shifting  presence  of  the  Brook  Farmer 
played  like  heat  lightning  around  the  room. 

"  '  I  recall  little  else  but  the  grave  eating  of  russet  apples  by  the  phi- 
losophers, and  a  solemn  disappearance  into  the  night.  The  club  strug- 


386 


LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 


gled  through  three  Monday  evenings.  Plato  [Alcott]  was  perpetually 
putting  apples  of  gold  in  pictures  of  silver ;  for  such  was  the  rich  ore  of 
his  thought,  coined  by  the  deep  melody  of  his  voice.  Orson  [Thoreau] 
charmed  us  with  the  secrets  won  from  his  interviews  with  Pan  in  the 
Walden  woods ;  while  Emerson,  with  the  zeal  of  an  engineer  trying  to 
dam  wild  waters,  sought  to  bind  the  wide-flying  embroidery  of  discourse 
into  a  web  of  clear  good  sense.  ...  I  have  known  clubs  of  fifty  times  its 
number  whose  collective  genius  was  not  more  than  that  of  either  one  of 
the  Dii  Majores  of  our  Concord  coterie.  The  fault  was  its  too  great 
concentration.  It  was  not  relaxation,  as  a  club  should  be,  but  tension.' 

"  In  1847,"  I  continued,  "  Emerson  ventured  his  first  vol- 
ume of  poems.  Then  came  e  Representative  Men/  in  1850, 
after  the  return  from  the  memorable  lecturing  tour  in  England, 

where  his  fame  had  long 
been  established ;  in  1856, 
<  English  Traits ' ;  in  1860, 
1  Conduct  of  Life';  in 
1867,  'May  Day/ the  sec- 
ond volume  of  poems; 
1870,  'Society  and  Soli- 
tude ' ;  1874,  his  selections 
of  English  poetry  in  <  Par- 
nassus ' ;  and  in  1875  the 
final  volume  of  his  last 
years,  (  Letters  and  Social 
Aims/  The  f  Lectures  and 
Biographical  Sketches/ 
and  the  'Miscellanies' 
were  published  after  his 
death.  Almost  all  of  his 
essays  were  his  lectures 
reconstructed,  and  the  lectures  were  drawn  from  his  journals 
in  which  his  thoughts  were  first  transcribed  as  they  came,  in 
chronological  order  only,  but  indexed. 

"  Of  Emerson's  personal  appearance  in  his  prime  we  have 
this  portrait  drawn  from  his  son's  description :  six  feet  in  his 


RALPH    WALDO    EMERSON,    1858. 


SUDBUKY  AND   CONCORD. 


387 


shoes,  and  erect ;  neither  very  thin  nor  stout  in  frame ;  shoul- 
ders rather  narrow  and  unusually  sloping ;  neck  long ;  head 
well  poised ;  eyes  very  blue ;  hair  dark  brown  ;  complexion  clear 
with  good  color;  features  pronounced  but  refined;  face  very 
much  modeled.  His  smile,  David  Macrae,  the  Scotchman, 
from  whom  I  have  before  quoted,  described  as  '  effervescing 
.  .  .  into  a  silent  laugh  that  runs  up  into  his  eyes  and  quivers 
at  the  corners  of  his  eyebrows,  like  sunlight  in  the  woods.'  As 


THE    "  ALCOTTS'    ORCHARD    HOUSE." 

pictured  by  Curtis,  it  was  a  '  slow,  wise  smile  that  breaks  over 
his  face  like  day  over  the  sky.' " 

Our  steps  were  now  directed  down  the  Lexington  road  along 
which  we  had  ridden  on  our  previous  pilgrimage ;  and  soon  we 
were  at  the  "  Orchard  House,"  a  former  home  of  the  Alcotts, 
and  the  chapel-like  buildings  in  the  yard,  set  up  for  the 


888  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

Concord  School  of  Philosophy.  These  we  inspected  leis- 
urely, while  our  talk  turned  upon  the  Alcott  family. 

"  This  'Orchard  House,"  I  remarked,  "  was  the  third  settled 
home  of  the  Alcotts  in  Concord,  and  it  is  the  most  interesting 
of  their  numerous  landmarks,  —  they  were  a  wandering  family. 
Their  life  here  covered  a  longer  period  than  anywhere  else  ;  and 
during  this  period  Louisa  produced  the  work  which  brought 
fortune  with  fame,  enabling  her  to  realize  the  ambition  of  her 
girlhood,  —  to  bring  comfort  and  ease  to  the  household,  through 
her  own  earnings. 

"  The  Alcotts  were  a  remarkable  family,  and  the  story  of 
their  life  is  unique  in  our  literary  annals.  The  father,  Amos 
Bronson  Alcott  (born  in  Wolcott,  Conn.,  1799  —  died  in  Bos- 
ton, 1888),  came  of  a  Connecticut  family  of  old  English  ancestry, 
with  the  surname  Alcox,  earlier  Alcock,  which  he  changed  to 
the  present  spelling.  He  was  an  Idealist,  a  peripatetic  philoso- 
pher ;  and  during  the  larger  part  of  his  life,  he  delivered,  for 
small  and  uncertain  fees,  his  Sayings  on  lofty  themes  in  cities 
and  towns  over  the  country  in  the  form  of  l  Conversations,'  often 
above  the  heads  of  his  audiences.  Earlier  he  traveled  as  a  Con- 
necticut pedler  among  plantations  in  the  South  in  ante-bellum 
days,  picking  up  much  learning  along  the  way  in  the  planters' 
libraries.  He  was  a  schoolmaster  with  reform  ideas,  most  of 
them  excellent,  but  all  ahead  of  his  times,  accordingly  inviting 
criticism,  some  ridicule,  and  disaster;  a  reformer,  ardent  in 
every  cause  for  humanity,  and  drawn  to  every  New  England 
'ism'  in  the  < fermenting'  period  between  the  thirties  and  six- 
ties ;  a  pioneer  Transcendentalist,  a  non-resistant,  a  vegetarian ; 
an  unworldly  man,  soaring  serenely  above  the  commercial  world, 
incapable  of  earning  money  from  his  pen  or  his  speech  in  or- 
dinary way ;  a  '  majestic  soul,'  Emerson,  his  faithful  friend, 
called  him,  the  only  one  whom  the  greater  seer  had  ever  met 
who  could  l  read  Plato  without  surprise,'  and  upon  whose  tomb- 
stone he  would  write  '  Here  lies  Plato's  Reader.' 

"  The  mother,  Abigail  (May)  Alcott  (born  in  Boston,  1800 


SUDBURY  AND   CONCORD.  389 

—  died  in  Concord,  1877),  was  a  woman  of  rare  character  and 
mental  powers.  She  was  the  youngest  daughter  of  a  Boston 
merchant  and  gently  reared,  sister  of  one  of  the  most  constant 
of  the  antislavery  leaders,  —  the  Kev.  Samuel  J.  May,  —  and 
allied  to  sterling  old  New  England  families,  on  the  maternal 
side  descending  from  the  famous  Sewall  family  of  judges. 
Though  she  published  nothing,  Sanborn,  Alcott's  biographer, 
gives  her  the  credit  of  having  been  the  best  writer  of  the  family, 
as  her  letters  displayed.  It  was  her  encouragement  and  in- 
terest in  Louisa's  literary  efforts  from  the  start  that  inspired 
the  author's  best  work.  Her  married  life  was  full  of  hardship 
till  the  strain  was  relieved  through  Louisa's  earnings.  She  did 
not  always  share  her  husband's  theories  of  living ;  but  she  was 
ever  loyal  and  hopeful.  That  pathetic  little  story  which  Louisa 
related  in  her  diary,  of  the  home-coming  of  the  dreamy  philoso- 
pher from  one  of  his  *  Conversation '  tours,  forlorn  and  almost 
penniless,  well  illustrates  the  mother's  fine  character  :  "  —  and 
I  read  from  my  notebook : 

"  4  In  February  [1854]  Father  came  home.  [The  family  were  then 
living  in  Boston,  in  the  Pinckney-street  house.]  Paid  his  way,  but  no 
more.  A  dramatic  scene  when  he  arrived  in  the  night.  We  were  waked 
by  hearing  the  bell.  Mother  flew  down,  crying,  '  My  husband  ! '  We 
rushed  after/ and  five  white  figures  embraced  the  half-frozen  wanderer 
who  came  in  hungry,  tired,  cold,  and  disappointed,  but  smiling  bravely 
and  as  serene  as  ever.  We  fed  and  warmed  and  brooded  over  him,  long- 
ing to  ask  if  he  had  made  any  money  ;  but  no  one  did  till  little  May  said, 
after  he  had  told  all  the  pleasant  things,  "  Well,  did  the  people  pay  you  ?" 
Then,  with  a  queer  look  he  opened  his  pocket-book  and  showed  one  dollar, 
saying,  with  a  smile  that  made  our  eyes  fill,  "Only  that !  My  overcoat 
was  stolen,  and  I  had  to  buy  a  shawl.  Many  promises  were  not  kept,  and 
traveling  is  costly  ;  but  I  have  opened  the  way,  and  another  year  shall  do 
better. ' '  I  shall  never  forget  how  beautifully  Mother  answered  him,  though 
the  dear,  hopeful  soul  had  built  much  on  his  success  ;  but  with  a  beaming 
face  she  kissed  him,  saying,  "I  call  that  doing  very  well.  Since  you  are 
safely  home,  dear,  we  don't  ask  anything  more." 

"Louisa  May  Alcott    (born  in  Germantown,  Pa.,  1832  — 
died  in  Roxbury  district,  Boston,  1888)  was  the  second  of  the 


390 


LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 


four  daughters.  She  began  writing  when  a  child,  and  before 
she  was  through  her  teens  she  had  become  an  industrious 
writer  of  stories.  Her  earliest  verses  were  some  lines  '  To  the 
First  Kobin/  composed  when  she  was  eight  years  old ;  her  first 
story  was  published  when  she  was  sixteen,  and  it  brought  her 
five  dollars.  That  story  was  written  in  this  Orchard  House. 

She  had  her  full  share  of  the 
family  anxieties  and  hard- 
ships. At  one  time  she  kept 
a  little  school  in  Emerson's 
barn,  having  for  pupils  her 
playmates  the  Emerson  chil- 
dren, and  those  of  other  neigh- 
bors. From  sixteen  to  twenty- 
three  she  engaged  in  numer- 
ous occupations,  still  steadily 
continuing  her  writings.  She 
taught  children  in  Boston, 
earned  money  with  her  nee- 
dle, and  in  domestic  service. 
Some  of  these  experiences 
were  afterward  detailed  in  her 
novel,  'Work/ 

"  Her  first  book  was  pub- 
lished when  she  was  twenty- 
two.  This  was  'Flower 

(From    the    Bust    by    F.    E.    Elwell,    in    the          Fables,'  a  SCnCS  of  little  tales 
Missouri  State  University.)  wMch.  ^  ^^  written,  in  her 

seventeenth  year,  for  Emerson's  daughter  Ellen,  some  years  her 
junior.  It  brought  her  thirty-two  dollars,  and,  what  was  most 
important,  the  attention  of  publishers ;  so  that  instead  of  seek- 
ing, her  wares  were  now  sought.  Accordingly  she  wrote  many 
stories  for  various  newspapers  and  periodicals  through  the  fol- 
lowing years  ;  tried  her  hand  at  play  writing  ( she  had  a  strong 
inclination  to  the  stage,  and  would  have  become  an  actress 


LOUISA    M.    ALCOTT. 


SUDBURY  ANT)   CONCORD.  891 

had  not  circumstances  prevented )  ;  and  began  her  first  novel, 
<  Moods.' 

"  It  was,  however,  not  till  the  Civil  War  period  that  Miss 
Alcott  obtained  really  wide  recognition  as  an  author ;  and  not 
till  1868  that  fame  and  fortune  together  came.  She  was  then 
thirty-six,  and  had  been  publishing  for  twenty  years.  The 
wider  recognition  was  achieved  by  her  '  Hospital  Sketches/ 
These  were  made  up  from  her  letters  to  the  home-circle"  during 
her  service  as  an  afmy  nurse  in  the  Union  Hospital  at  George- 
town, in  1862,  an  experience  which  nearly  cost  her  her  life. 
The  fame  and  fortune  were  won  by  her  '  Little  Women/  This 
was  founded  on  the  family  history  and  adventures,  in  which 
she  and  her  sisters  stood  for  the  chief  characters.  '  Jo '  was 
herself;  'Beth,'  her  younger  sister,  Elizabeth,  who  died  just 
before  the  family  moved  into  the  Orchard  House ;  '  Meg,'  her 
eldest  sister,  Anna  Bronson,  who  became  Mrs.  Pratt,  and  whose 
boys  were  the  ' Little  Men';  and  'Amy/  her  youngest  sister, 
Abby  May,  the  artist.  May  married  a  young  Swiss,  M.  Nie- 
ricker,  while  pursuing  her  art  in  Paris,  and  died  there  in 
December,  1879 ;  for  her  infant  girl,  left  as  a  legacy  to  Louisa, 
the  stories  of ( Lulu's  Library  '  were  spun.  Between  the  '  Hospi- 
tal Sketches'  and  'Little  Women,'  the  novel  'Moods'  was 
published ;  and  after  '  Little  Women/  t  The  Old  Fashioned 
Girl.' 

"  In  1872,  Miss  Alcott  was  enabled  to  record  in  her  journal, 
'  Twenty  years  ago  I  resolved  to  make  the  family  independent 
if  I  could.  At  forty  this  is'  done.  Debts  all  paid,  even  the 
outlawed  ones,  and  we  have  enough  to  be  comfortable.  It  has 
cost  me  my  health,  perhaps ;  but  as  I  still  live,  there  is  more 
for  me  to  do,  I  suppose/  Not  only  had  this  large-hearted 
woman  cleared  the  family  of  debt  and  made  them  comfortable, 
but  she  had  aided  the  artist-sister  May  to  her  art  education, 
and  had  helped  others  over  the  rough  road  of  professional 
apprenticeship.  Her  labors  had  indeed  cost  her  her  health,  and 
she  was  an  invalid  through  the  remainder  of  her  life ;  but  her 


392  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

work  went  on  almost  unceasingly  to  the  end,  and  with  it  her 
benefactions. 

"  In  1871  '  Little  Men '  was  written —  begun  in  Rome,  when 
she  was  abroad  seeking  rest,  upon  hearing  of  the  death  of 
'  Meg's '  husband,  —  <  that  John's  death  may  not  leave  A[nna] 
and  the  dear  little  boys  in  want/  she  recorded  in  her  diary. 
In  1872-'73  came  « Shawl  Straps '  recounting  her  journeyings 
through  Prance,  her  novel  l  Work,'  and  ten  or  a  dozen  tales ; 
through  1874-'76,  many  tales  ;  in  1877,  her  first  successful 
attempt  at  an  adult  novel  in  '  The  Modern  Mephistopheles ' ; 
the  same  year,  among  other  stories,  '  My  Girls '  and  '  Under 
the  Lilacs,'  the  one  written,  and  the  other  finished,  to  distract 
her  mind  while  watching  at  the  bedside  of  her  mother,  who 
died  that  year.  'Jack  and  Jill,'  into  which  Concord  scenes 
and  folk  are  worked,  and  '  Jo's  Boys,'  were  among  the  produc- 
tions of  her  last  years.  Her  books  in  the  alcove  of  the  Concord 
library  filled  with  the  works  of  Concord  authors,  number  about 
thirty. 

"  Miss  Alcott  was  a  rapid  writer,  and  some  of  her  most  popu- 
lar books  were  produced  in  remarkably  quick  time.  '  Little 
Women '  was  thought  out  and  written  in  less  than  three  months. 
She  had  no  regular  study,  but  wrote  where  she  could ;  any  pen 
or  paper  would  do,  and  an  old  atlas  on  her  knee  served  as  desk. 
She  often  carried  a  dozen  plots  in  her  head,  and  thought  them 
out  when  in  the  mood.  When  she  got  down  to  a  book  or  a 
story  she  was  absorbed  by  it.  She  has  said  that  she  used  to 
sit  fourteen  hours  a  day  at  one  time,  eating  little,  and  unable 
to  stir  until  a  certain  amount  was  done.  A  passage  in  her 
diary  telling  of  a  'turn*  at  her  first  novel,  'Moods,'  is  an  illus- 
tration of  this  frenzy  in  writing :  — 

"'  February. — Another  turn  at  "Moods,"  which  I  remodeled. 
From  the  2d  to  the  25th  I  sat  writing,  with  a  run  at  dusk  ;  could  not 
sleep,  and  for  three  days  so  full  of  it  I  could  not  stop  to  get  up.  .  .  . 
Mother  wandered  in  and  out  with  cordial  cups  of  tea,  worried  because  I 
couldn't  eat.  Father  thought  it  fine,  and  brought  his  reddest  apples  and 


SUDBURY  AND  CONCORD. 


393 


394  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

hardest  cider  for  my  Pegasus  to  feed  upon.  All  sorts  of  fun  was  going 
on  ;  but  I  didn't  care  if  the  world  returned  to  chaos  if  I  and  nay  inkstand 
only  u  lit  "  in  the  same  place.1  '* 

"  That  was  { plain  living  and  high  thinking '  with  a  venge- 
ance ! "  Percy  exclaimed. 

"  True ;  happily  it  was  not  common  even  in  those  rigorous 
days.  And  she  paid  the  penalty  for  it,  as  we  have  seen. 

"  The  Alcotts  came  first  to  live  in  Concord  in  1840,  their 
advent  being  thus  noted  in  Emerson's  Journal :  '  A.  B.  Alcott, 
who  is  a  great  man  if  he  cannot  write  well,  has  come  to  Concord 
with  his  wife  and  three  children,  and  taken  a  cottage  and  an 
acre  of  ground  to  get  his  living  by  the  help  of  God  and  his  own 
spade.'  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Alcott  had  then  been  married  ten  years. 
The  Idealist  had  been  through  his  hard  experiences,  —  all  end- 
ing dismally  from  a  financial  point  of  view,  —  as  a  schoolmaster 
with  his  philanthropic  scheme  of  redeeming  mankind  by  re- 
forming the  education  of  children,  as  Sanborn  succinctly  states 
it.  Before  his  marriage  he  had  taught  his  new  system  in  seve- 
ral Connecticut  towns,  —  in  common  and  private  schools,  —  and 
in  Boston ;  after  his  marriage,  in  Germantown  (then  a  suburb 
of  Philadelphia),  also  in  Philadelphia,  and  again  in  Boston. 
Finally  he  instituted  in  the  latter  city  his  famous  '  Temple 
School/  where  he  had  as  assistants  Elizabeth  Peabody,  who 
published  its  annals  in  her  '  Record  of  a  School,'  —  and,  for 
a  short  time,  Margaret  Fuller.  It  was  in  this  school  that  he 
carried  his  theories  of  spiritual  culture  to  their  extreme,  and 
ultimately  failed  through  the  newspaper  criticisms  of  his 
methods,  especially  the  reports  of  his  *  Conversations  with 
Children  on  the  Gospels,'  and  his  subsequent  admission  of  a 
colored  pupil  to  the  school.  Meanwhile  he  had  delved  into 
metaphysics,  and  had  begun  his  travels  as  a  peripatetic  philoso- 
pher ;  but  with  all  he  had  retained  no  money  in  his  purse. 
When  they  had  determined  upon  the  removal  to  the  country, 
with  what  was  left  qf  their  household  goods  after  the  Boston 
experience,  brave  Mrs.  Alcott  wrote  in  one  of  her  letters  to  her 


SUDBURY  AND   CONCORD.  395 

kindred,  '  We  go  to  Concord  for  another  experiment  in  the  art 
of  living.' 

"This  first  Concord  home  was  the  'Hosmer  Cottage/  on 
the  west  side  of  the  village,  overlooking  the  Concord  Eiver, 
with  a  garden  and  a  big  barn,  which  figure  in  'Little  Women.' 
The  rental  of  the  little  estate  was  but  fifty  dollars  a  year. 
The  Idealist  began  zealously  to  work  upon  his  one-acre  farm, 
and  tried  to  let  his  spade  to  neighboring  farmers.  *  But/  says 
San  born,  'he  toiled  with  a  divided  mind;  his  heart  was  still 
upon  his  true  mission  in  the  world,  —  to  inspire  thought,  and 
to  share  the  spiritual  tasks  of  the  time.  He  must  still  go  to  the 
Symposium,  must  take  part  in  Non-Resistance  meetings  and 
Bible  conventions.  With  a  little  capital  and  an  unsolicited 
attention,  he  could  have  prospered ;  for  he  had  bodily  vigor, 
frugal  habits,  and  an  earnest  purpose.  Success  in  this  two- 
fold allegiance  could  not  befall  him  ;  and  his  eyes  soon  turned 
toward  England,  where  for  years  he  had  been  gaining  friends/ 

"  These  English  friends  were  reformers  who  had  been  drawn 
to  him  through  the  story  of  his  '  Temple  School/  and  his 
'  Conversations  on  the  Gospels/  which  had  gone  abroad ;  and 
some  of  them  had  established  a  similar  school  at  Ham 
Common,  near  Richmond,  to  which  they  had  given  the  name 
of  *  Alcott  House '  in  his  honor.  At  length,  largely  through 
the  generosity  of  his  constant  friend  Emerson,  passage  was 
secured  for  him,  and  in  May,  1842,  <  with  ten  sovereigns  in  his 
red  pocket-book  and  a  bill  of  exchange  for  twenty  pounds/  he 
sailed  off,  leaving  the  family  at  the  Hosmer  Cottage  with  his 
brother  in  charge.  In  October  he  returned  accompanied  by 
two  of  his  English  friends,  enthusiastically  intent  upon  plant- 
ing in  rugged  New  England  a  <  new  Eden '  where  man  might 
<  untempted  by  evil,  dwell  in  harmony  with  his  Creator,  with 
himself,  his  fellows,  and  all  external  natures.'  Then  followed 
the  tragic  '  Fruitlands  Community '  experiment,  the  comic  side 
of  which  was  later  on  presented  in  Louisa's  story  of  l  Transcen- 
dental Wfild  Oats.' 


396  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

•'  This  Utopian  enterprise  was  at  length  begun  in  the  early 
summer  of  1843,  when  the  Hosmer  Cottage  was  abandoned  and 
the  family  was  removed  to  the  'New  Paradise.'  The  spot 
selected  was  a  hillside  farm,  amid  rural  surroundings,  over- 
looking a  river  and  distant  mountains,  in  the  country  beyond 
the  village  of  Harvard  —  where  Emerson's  father  had  been 
settled  as  minister  at  the  close  of  the  eighteenth  century,  • — 
about  twenty  miles  from  Concord.  The  Community  was  to  be 
'  rooted  in  a  reliance  on  the  succors  of  an  ever-bountiful  Provi- 
dence, whose  vital  affinities  being  secured  by  this  union  with 
uncorrupted  fields  and  unworldly  persons,  the  cares  and  in- 
juries of  a  life  of  gain'  would  be  avoided.  One  of  his  English 
associates  furnished  the  means  to  set  it  going,  but  Alcott  was 
the  head  of  the  Community.  A  lively  description  of  it,  drawn 
from  Alcott' s  own  story  to  the  narrator  many  years  after,  runs 
in  this  wise :  — 

"  '  Only  a  vegetable  diet  was  allowed,  for  the  rights  of  animals  to  life, 
liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness  formed  a  fundamental  principle  in 
their  constitution.  This  not  only  cut  them  off  from  beef,  but  from  milk 
and  eggs.  The  milk  belonged  to  the  calf  ;  the  chicken  had  a  right  to  its 
existence  as  well  as  the  infant.  Even  the  canker-worms  that  infested  the 
apple-trees  were  not  to  be  molested.  They  had  as  much  right  to  the 
apples  as  man  had.  Unfortunately  farm  operations  were  not  started 
until  well  into  June,  and  the  only  crop  raised  that  was  of  value  as  de- 
pendence was  barley  ;  but  the  philosophers  did  not  flinch  at  the  thought 
of  an  exclusively  barley  diet.  Now  and  then  they  gave  a  thought  as  to 
what  they  should  do  for  shoes  when  those  they  now  had  were  gone,  for 
depriving  the  cow  of  her  skin  was  a  crime  not  to  be  tolerated. .  The 
barley  crop  was  injured  in  harvesting,  and  before  long  actual  want  was 
staring  them  in  the  face.  This  burden  fell  heaviest  upon  Mrs.  Alcott,  for, 
as  housewife,  it  was  her  duty  to  prepare  three  meals  a  day.  They 
remained  at  Fruitlands  till  midwinter  in  dire  poverty,  all  the  guests 
having  taken  their  departure  as  provisions  vanished.' 

"  Finally  Mr.  Alcott  put  his  wife  and  their  four  little 
women  on  an  ox-sled,  and  so  reached  a  friendly  shelter  in  the 
village.  Thence  they  made  their  slow  way  back  to  Concord. 


SUDBURT  AND  CONCORD.  397 

To  the  Idealist  this  failure,  which  even  his  Transcendental 
friends  foresaw,  was  most  bitter.  As  Louisa  recounted  in  her 
story  (in  which  only  the  names  of  the  characters  are  fictitious), 
he  had  'reveled  in  the  Newness,  firmly  believing  that  his 
dream  was  to  be  beautifully  realized,  and  in  time  not  only  little 
Fruitlands,  but  the  whole  earth  be  turned  into  a  Happy  Valley. 
He  worked  with  every  muscle  of  his  body,  for  he  was  in  earn- 
est. He  taught  with  his  whole  head  and  heart ;  planned  and 
sacrificed,  preached  and  prophesied,  with  a  soul  full  of  the 
purest  aspirations,  most  unselfish  purposes,  and  desires  for  a 
life  devoted  to  God  and  man,  too  high  and  tender  to  bear  the 
rough  usage  of  this  world.'  The  Community  numbered  at  its 
fullest  only  about  fifteen  persons.  Among  them  was  Isaac  T. 
Hecker  of  New  York,  afterward  the  widely  famed  Father 
Hecker,  editor  of  the  Catholic  World. 

"  The  recovery  of  the  family  from  this  disaster  was  painful. 
But  after  a  season  of  grave  illness  and  despair  the  Idealist 
wrote  his  little  poem  <  The  Return,'  and  emerged  again  into  the 
ordinary  world.  He  tried  to  get  one  of  the  town  schools  to 
teach,  but  was  unsuccessful,  probably  because  of  the  Fruit- 
lands  affair,  which  remained  for  some  time  a  subject  of  ridicule 
and  discredited  the  enthusiast  among  l  practical '  men.  After 
a  while,  however,  he  was  able  to  resume  his  public  *  Conversa- 
tions/ and  henceforward,  as  Sanborn  notes,  he  came  to  be 
known  as  the  <Socratic  talker  of  his  time.'  Meanwhile  he 
pursued  horticulture,  helped  Thoreau  build  his  hut  by  Walden, 
read  much,  wrote  out  his  Orphic  thoughts  in  his  ponderous 
journal  (which  ultimately  filled  many  volumes),  and  educated 
his  children,  '  in  the  wise  way/  Louisa  afterward  wrote,  '  which 
unfolds  what  lies  in  the  child's  nature,  as  a  flower  blooms, 
rather  than  crammed  it,  like  a  Strasburg  goose,  with  more  than 
it  could  digest.'  He  continued  very  poor,  but  'full  of  high 
thoughts  and  cheerful  hopes.' 

"  The  home  during  this  period  was  the  place  next  beyond 
the  Orchard  House,  which  afterward  became  Hawthorne's 


398  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

1  Wayside.'  When  the  Alcotts  purchased  it  with  means  from 
a  little  legacy  of  Mrs.  Alcott's,  it  was  a  rough  place,  embracing 
about  thirty  acres  at  the  foot  of  the  wooded  hill,  and  a  shabby 
little  house  with  two  peaked  gables,  a  century  or  more  old.  Its 
previous  occupant  had  been  a  '  pig  driver/  who  herded  his  stock 
in  the  front  yard.  Alcott,  with  skillful  hand,  refashioned  the 
house,  adding  a  central  peak,  a  front  porch,  and  piazzas  at  each 
end,  and  painted  it  a  rusty  olive  hue.  He  also  gave  the  grounds 
a  quaint  picturesqueness  by  the  irregular  planting  of  varieties 
of  trees,  the  building  of  a  terraced  garden  against  the  hillside, 
and  the  construction  of  arbors  and  summer  houses  out  of  rough 
stems,  branches,  and  boughs,  with  a  pleasaunce  by  the  brookside 
for  the  girls.  He  called  the  place  *  The  Hillside/  It  was  here 
that  much  of  the  girlish  life  chronicled  in  '  Little  Women '  was 
passed.  Here  Louisa  began  her  verse-making  and  story-writing. 
It  was  at  this  time  that  she  kept  her  little  school  in  Emerson's 
barn,  and  wrote  the  fairy  stories,  — '  Flower  Fables.'  She  had 
the  run  of  Emerson's  library ;  browsing  over  it  one  day  she  fell 
upon  Goethe's  '  Correspondence  with  a  Child,'  which  fired  her 
imagination ;  then  she  chose  Emerson  for  her  '  Master,'  and  he 
remained  ever  after  her  idol. 

"  Though  the  life  at  <  The  Hillside '  was  to  a  degree  idyllic, 
Poverty  lived  with  the  family,  and  after  four  years,  late  in 
1848,  they  gave  up  the  house,  and  returned  again  to  Boston 
in  the  hope  of  bettering  their  fortunes.  There  Mrs.  Alcott  got 
a  position  through  friends  as  a  visitor  among  the  poor ;  Louisa 
toiled  as  we  have  seen ;  and  Anna,  the  eldest  daughter,  taught 
school.  Meanwhile  the  serene  Idealist  continued  his  i  Conver- 
sations,' first  in  the  city  at  a  '  Town  and  Country  Club '  of  his 
own  establishing,  made  up  of  other  prophets  and  disciples  of 
the  < Newness';  later  'on  the  road,'  with  various  ups  and  downs, 
as  is  disclosed  in  that  pathetic  story  which  we  have  recalled  of 
his  home-coming  from  one  of  the  *  downs.'  The  Boston  experi- 
ences were  succeeded  by  two  years  of  country  life  on  a  farm 
of  one  of  Mrs.  Alcott's  kinsmen  in  New  Hampshire ;  and  then, 


SUDBUKY  AND   CONCORD.  399 

ten  years  ^after  their  departure  from  The  Hillside,  they  made 
their  final  return  to  Concord,  and  in  the  autumn  of  1858  were 
permanently  established  here  in  the  Orchard  House. 

"  The  Orchard  House  remained  their  home  for  twenty  years. 
It  was  purchased  by  Mrs.  Alcott  and  some  of  her  friends,  Em- 
erson, ever  the  '  good  angel '  of  the  family,  contributing  the 
larger  share.  It  was  an  old  New  England  farmhouse  which  had 
stood  for  two  centuries.  In  the  spring  before  they  occupied  it 
the  family  suffered  sore  affliction  in  the  death  of  the  third 
daughter,  Elizabeth,  after  a  long  illness  at  their  temporary 
home  in  the  village.  Their  incoming  was  thus  chronicled  in 
Louisa's  diary ;  — 

"'•July.  — Went  into  the  new  house  and  began  to  settle.  Father  is 
happy  ;  Mother  glad  to  be  at  rest ;  Anna  is  in  bliss  with  her  gentle  John 
[John  Pratt,  her  future  husband,  to  whom  she  was  then  engaged]  ;  and 
May  busy  over  her  pictures.  I  have  plans  simmering  [for  stories],  but 
must  sweep  and  dust  and  wash  my  dish-pans  a  while  longer  till  I  see  my 
way.' 

"  The  house  was  freshened  and  adorned  by  the  united  work 
of  father  and  daughters.  The  girls  papered  the  walls,  and  by 
degrees  the  nooks  and  corners  were  filled  with  panels  upon 
which  May  had  painted  birds  and  flowers ;  over  the  fireplaces 
were  also  painted  mottoes  in  ancient  English  characters,  and 
on  the  chimney-piece  of  the  study  this  epigram  written  by  El- 
lery  Channing :  — 

"'The  hills  are  reared,  the  valleys  scooped,  in  vain, 
If  Learning's  altars  vanish  from  the  plain.1 

"'Nan's'  wedding,  on  May  day  in  1860,  was  an  event  in 
the  quaint  old  house.  There  was  a  wedding  feast  to  which 
the  neighbors  were  invited ;  the  old  folk  danced  round  the 
bridal  pair  on  the  lawn,  in  the  German  fashion ;  and  Emerson 
kissed  the  bride,  an  honor  which  Louisa  thought  l  would  make 
even  matrimony  endurable.'  After  the  execution  of  John 
Brown  of  Ossawatomie,  in  whose  cause  Alcott  was  enlisted, 


400  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

Brown's  daughters  came  to  board  with  the  family  for  a  time. 
The  Concord  home  had  been  a  haven  for  runaway  slaves,  and 
there  is  a  tradition  that  one  was  once  secreted  in  the  big  oven 
of  the  Hillside  house. 

"As  things  improved  through  Louisa's  achievements,  the 
placid  seer  occasionally  gave  his  l  Conversations '  to  little  gath- 
erings in  the  library  here.  Continuing  his  western  tours  he 
found  himself  most  heartily  welcomed  as  '  the  grandfather  of 
the  Little  Women,'  and  talk  about  his  daughter  was  more 
popular  than  his  metaphysical  discourses.  On  the  strength 
of  Louisa's  successes  he  ventured  again  his  own  work  in  book 
form.  In  1868,  when  <  Little  Women '  was  bounding  along  its 
prosperous  way,  he  brought  out  his  l  Tablets.'  In  1872,  '  Con- 
cord Days '  appeared ;  in  1877,  '  Table  Talk.'  Then  two  years 
after,  when  he  was  eighty,  came  the  realization  of  his  dream 
of  years  in  the  establishment  of  the  '  Concord  Summer  School 
of  Philosophy  and  Literature.' 

"  Of  this  unique  institution  Alcott  was  the  dean,  and  him 
it  glorified  above  all  others.  It  was  started  in  his  old  library 
of  the  Orchard  House,  which  was  reopened  for  the  purpose, 
the  family  home  then  being  the  Main-street  '  Thoreau  house ' 
as  we  have  seen.  Later  it  occupied  the  little  chapel  which 
was  built  from  a  fund  contributed  by  a  friend  of  the  school. 
It  drew  throngs  to  Concord  from  all  parts  of  the  country  every 
summer  through  its  nine  years  of  existence.  Some  were  drawn 
by  curiosity,  more  by  interest  in  the  oral  teachings  of  the  phi- 
losophers and  the  formal  lectures  or  conversations  of  others 
after  the  Alcott  pattern.  Some  took  it  humorously,  more  most 
seriously. 

"  Louisa  saw  both  its  humorous  and  serious  sides  :  and  took 
a  practical  view  of  it.  On  the  day  before  the  opening  she 
chronicled  in  her  diary  :  <  The  philosophers  begin  to  swarm, 
and  the  buzz  starts  to-morrow.  How  much  honey  will  be 
made  is  still  doubtful,  but  the  hive  is  ready  and  the  drones 
also.'  The  day  of  the  opening :  '  Father  has  his  dream  realized 


SUDBURY  AND   CONCO11D.  401 

at  last,  and  is  in  glory,  with  plenty  of  talk  to  swim  in.  People 
laugh,  but  will  enjoy  something  new  in  this  dull  old  town  ;  and 
the  fresh  Westerners  will  show  them  that  all  the  culture  of 
the  world  is  not  in  Concord/  A  month  later :  <  The  town 
swarms  with  budding  philosophers,  and  they  roost  on  our  steps 
like  hens  waiting  for  corn.  Father  revels  in  it.  ...  If  they 
were  philanthropists  I  should  enjoy  it ;  but  speculation  seems 
a  waste  of  time  when  there  is  so  much  real  work  crying  to  be 
done.  Why  discuss  the  "  unknowable "  till  our  poor  are  fed 
and  the  wicked  saved  ?  '  Later  on,  at  the  opening  of  the  third 
year's  session :  '  School  of  Philosophy  opens  ...  in  full  force. 
I  arrange  flowers,  oak  branches,  etc.,  and  then  fly  before  the 
reporters  come.  Father  very  happy.  Westerners  arrive,  and 
the  town  is  full  with  ideal  speculators.  Penny  [driver  of  the 
"  depot  carriage  "]  has  a  new  barge ;  we  call  it  the  "  Blue  Plato  " 
(not  the  "  Black  Maria  ")  and  watch  it  rumble  by  with  Margaret 
Fullers  in  white  muslin  and  Hegels  in  straw  hats,  while  stout 
Penny  grins  at  the  joke  as  he  puts  money  in  his  purse.  The 
first  year  Concord  people  stood  aloof,  and  the  strangers  found 
it  hard  to  get  rooms.  Now  every  one  is  eager  to  take  them, 
and  the  School  is  pronounced  a  success  because  it  brings  money 
to  the  town.  Even  philosophers  can't  do  without  food,  beds, 
and  washing ;  so  all  rejoice,  and  the  new  craze  flourishes.  If 
all  our  guests  paid  we  should  be  well  off ;  several  hundred  a 
month  is  rather  wearing.' 

"When  Alcott  was  eighty-one  he  niade  his  last  journey 
West,  traveling  over  five  thousand  miles,  and  delivering  <  Con- 
versations,' or  addresses,  at  the  rate  of  more  than  one  a  day ; 
and  he  returned  none  the  worse,  apparently,  from  the  strain, 
with  one  thousand  dollars  in  his  purse  as  profit.  His  last 
book,  *  Sonnets  and  Canzonets,'  was  brought  out  in  his  eighty- 
third  year.  He  died  in  his  eighty-ninth  year,  at  Louisa's  Boston 
home,  —  the  Louisburg-Square  house ;  and  on  the  very  day  of 
his  funeral  she  died,  away  from  him  (at  the  home  of  her  physi- 
cian in  Roxbury),  unaware  of  his  death.  Her  last  illness  was 


402 


LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 


the  result  of  exposure  in  the  harsh  March  weather  after  an 
anxious  call  upon  him  a  few  days  before.  Both  were  brought 
to  Concord  for  burial,  Louisa's  '  boys '  attending  her  body  to 
the  grave  as  a  l  guard  of  honor.'  We  saw  their  graves  marked 
by  the  little  white  tablets,  when  we  were  here  before,  —  in 
<  Sleepy  Hollow,'  in  the  lot  opposite  Hawthorne's.  They  are 

beside  the  others  of 
the  family,  with  the 
exception  of  '  Nan/ 
who  lies  at  her  hus- 
band's side  in  the 
Pratt  family  lot." 

The  "Wayside" 
we  found  preserved 
much  as  in  Haw- 
thorne's time  by  its 
present  owner,  herself 
a  woman  of  letters, 
pleasantly  known  to 
a  world  of  young 
readers  through  her 
pen-name  of  "  Mar- 
garet Sidney"  (Mrs 
Margaret  Lothrop  ) . 
Percy  revelled  in  the 
picturesque  interior.- 
The  low-studded 
room,  at  the  left  of 

the  little  entrance  hall,  he  was  told  had  been  Hawthorne's 
library.  The  secluded  "tower-study"  was  the  top  room  of 
the  back  wing  of  three  stories,  rising  above  the  irregular 
roofs  of  the  main  structure,  thus  producing  the  tower  effect. 
Had  our  visit  been  made  in  the  romancer's  lifetime  and  the 
good  fortune  been  ours  to  have  followed  him  up  the  narrow 
stairs  into  this  sanctuary,  we  would  have  seen  by  the  en- 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE   IN   MIDDLE   LIFE. 


AND  CONCORD.  403 

trance,  in  either  corner,  the  little  bookcases  with  the  mottoes 
above  them  :  "  Abandon  Care  All  Ye  Who  Enter  Here,"  and 
"  There  is  no  Joy  but  Calm " ;  and  on  the  window-casing  be- 
tween the  book-shelves  the  word  "  Olympus,"  in  Greek  letters. 
Our  glance  would  have  included  a  cheerful  room  finished  in 
red-stained  pine,  with  a  vaulted  plaster  ceiling,  with  windows 
on  all  sides  looking  out  upon  the  tree-tops  and  rural  landscapes, 
with  simple  furnishings,  a  few  pictures  on  the  walls,  and  a  few 
ornaments  on  the  mantel-shelf.  There  was  the  plain  writing- 
table  of  walnut  wood,  having  a  sloping  desk  on  one  side  and 
some  drawers  on  the  other ;  upon  it  the  Italian  bronze  inkstand 
surmounted  by  the  little  figure  of  "The  Boy  Strangling  the 
Swan  "  ;  the  gold  pen ;  and  the  large,  square  manuscript  bound 
in  covers.  Against  the  wall,  near  one  of  the  windows,  was  the 
hinged  shelf  for  use  as  a  standing-desk.  By  the  writing-table 
were  two  chairs,  one  a  comfortable  New  England  rocker. 

In  this  study,  Percy  learned,  Hawthorne  wrote  his  last 
works  after  his  final  return  from  Europe,  four  years  before 
his  death.  The  writing  included  the  English  sketches  collected 
in  "Our  Old  Home";  "Dr.  Grimshawe's  Secret,"  the  first 
scheme  of  which  appeared  as  "  The  Ancestral  Footstep " ; 
"  Septimius  Felton,"  into  which  "  Dr.  Grimshawe's  Secret " 
was  merged;  and  the  unfinished  "  Dolliver  Komance,"  for 
which  "  Septimius  Felton  "  was  the  preliminary  study.  "  The 
manuscript  of  this  fragmentary  romance,"  I  added,  "  lay  upon 
Hawthorne's  coffin  during  the  funeral  services  in  the  historic 
old  church  in  the  village,  when  James  Freeman  Clarke,  who 
had  performed  his  marriage  ceremony,  conducted  the  simple 
service;  and  when  Emerson,  Lowell,  Longfellow,  Holmes, 
Whipple,  Hillard,  and  Agassiz  were  of  the  company  who 
walked  with  heads  bared  in  'the  procession  to  the  grave  at 
Sleepy  Hollow.  This  manuscript  was  not  buried  with  him, 
as  some  have  said,  but  is  preserved  in  the  Concord  Public 
Library/' 

Percy  was  also  interested  to  learn  that  the  scenes  of  "  The 


404 


L 1 TERA  R  Y  PIL  GRIN  A  GES. 


Dolliver  Romance  "  and  "  Septimius  Felton  "  were  about  The 
Wayside  and  Alcott's  Orchard  House.  He  was  told  that  a 
tradition  respecting  The  Wayside  which  Thoreau  had  related 
to  Hawthorne  when  he  first  came  to  live  here  in  1852,  —  that 
it  had  been  inhabited  a  generation  or  two  before  by  a  man  who 
believed  he  should  never  die,  —  revived  the  idea  of  a  deathless 
man  which  had  long  been  in  the  romancer's  mind ;  and  it  was 
this  legendary  person  whom  he  embodied  in  Septimius  Felton. 
It  was  at  the  foot  of  one  of  the  large  pines  on  the  hilltop  be-  • 
hind  the  house,  which  was  Hawthorne's  outdoor  study  when 
he  was  thinking  out  the  tragedy,  that  Septimius  Felton  in  the 
romance  buried  the  young  English  officer. 


HAWTHORNE'S    WALK    ON    THE    RIDGE. 

We  now  mounted  the  hill  to  the  "  outdoor  study."  Haw- 
thorne used  to  ascend  it  by  various  climbing  paths  under  the 
larches  and  pines  and  scraggy  apple-trees,  and  his  tall  form 
pacing  up  and  down  the  long  height  could  be  seen  through  the 
trees  from  the  house  lawn.  "  His  daughter  Rose,  who  became 
the  wife  of  the  late  George  Parsons  Lathrop  (editor  of  the 


SUDBURY  AND   CONCORD.  405 

Kiverside  Edition  of  Hawthorne's  works),''  I  said,  "has  given 
the  truest  description  of  this  t  study,'  in  her  '  Memories  of 
Hawthorne.' "  And  I  read  the  passage  as  follows :  — 

"  '  We  could  catch  sight  of  him  going  back  aiid  forth  up  there,  with 
now  and  then  a  pale  blue  gleam  of  sky  among  the  trees  against  which  his 
figure  passed  clear.  At  one  end  of  the  hilltop  path  [made  by  his  own  steps 
only]  was  a  thicket  of  birch  and  maple  trees  ;  and  at  the  end  toward  the 
west  and  the  village  was  the  open  brow  of  the  hill,  sloping  rapidly  to  the 
Lexington  road  and  overlooking  meadows  and  distant  wood-ranges,  some 
of  the  cottages  of  humble  folk,  and  the  neighboring  huge  owlet-haunted 
elms  of  Alcott's  lawn.  Along  this  path  in  spring  huddled  pale  blue  vio- 
lets, of  a  blue  that  held  sunlight,  pure  as  his  own  eyes.  Masses  also  of 
sweetfern  grew  at  the  side  of  these  abundant  bordering  violets,  and  spa- 
cious apartments  of  brown-floored  pine  groves  flanked  the  sweetfern,  or 
receded  a  little  before  heaps  of  blackberry  branches  and  simple  flowers. 
My  father's  violets  were  the  wonder  of  the  year  to  us.  We  never  saw  so 
many  of  these  broad,  pale-petaled  ones  anywhere  else,  until  the  year  of 
his  death,  when  they  greeted  him  with  their  celestial  color  as  he  was  borne 
into  Sleepy  Hollow,  as  if  in  remembrance  of  his  long  companionship  on 
The  Way  side  hill.'" 

"Was  there  any  special  reason  for  calling  this  place  'The 
Wayside?'"  Percy  asked,  as  we  resumed  our  walk,  now  shap- 
ing our  course  in  the  direction  of  the  "  Old  Manse." 

"  Hawthorne  chose  this  name,"  I  replied,  "  as  more  '  morally 
suggestive,'  so  Ire  wrote  in  describing  it,  than  Alcott's  name  of 
'  The  Hillside,'  because  of  its  secluded  situation  amidst  trees 
and  shrubs,  close  upon  the  traveled  high  road.  Lathrop  has 
suggested  that  the  name  may  also  have  recommended  itself  to 
him  by  some  association  of  thought  like  that  which  appears  in 
his  preface  to  '  The  Snow  Image,'  where,  alluding  to  the  years 
immediately  following  his  college  days,  he  says  *  I  sat  down 
by  the  wayside  of  life  like  a  man  under  enchantment,  and  a 
shrubbery  sprung  up  around  me,  and  the  bushes  grew  to  sap- 
lings, and  the  saplings  became  trees  until  no  exit  appeared 
possible  through  the  entangling  depths  of  my  obscurity.' 

"  When  Hawthorne  bought  the  place  from  Alcott,  and  came 


406  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

here  to  live  in  the  early  summer  of  1852,  the  rural  embellish- 
ments which  Alcott  had  made  had  fallen  into  picturesque  decay. 
Against  the  hillside  were  the  locust  trees  of  his  planting  inter- 
mixed with  young  elms,  white  pines,  and  infant  oaks,  and  in 
their  shade  Hawthorne  wrote  that  he  spent  delectable  hours 
<  stretched  out  at  my  lazy  length,  with  a  book  in  my  hand  and 
an  unwritten  book  in  my  thoughts.'  By  degrees  he  readorned 
the  grounds  in  accordance  with  his  own  taste,  adding  firs,  Scotch 
larches,  birches  and  other  trees  to  the  thicket,  setting  out  the 
low  hedge  on  the  sidewalk  line,  and  training  rose-vines  and 


HAWTHORNE'S     WEST    NEWTON    HOME. 

woodbine  over  one  end  of  the  house.  The  larger  part  of  this 
work  was  done  after  his  return  from  Europe,  when  the  enlarge- 
ment of  the  ancient  house,  by  the  f  tower '  addition,  was  made. 
He  went  abroad  to  take  up  the  consulship  at  Liverpool  in  the 
summer  of  1853,  and  was  absent  seven  years.  '  The  Wayside ' 
life,  therefore,  covered  only  five  years.  When  he  came  here  he 
had  just  published  *  The  Blithedale  Romance,'  which  was  writ- 
ten in  the  winter  of  1851-'52  at  West  Newton,  near  Boston,  in 
the  home  of  his  brother-in-law,  Horace  Mann,  the  educator,  who 
was  then  abroad.  Hawthorne  had  removed  thither,  tempo- 
rarily from  Lenox." 


8UDBURY  AND   CONCORD.  407 

The  Old  Manse  was  of  all  the  Concord  literary  landmarks 
most  familiar  to  Percy,  from  his  previous  visit  when  he  had  been 
graciously  shown  over  the  ancient  house  by  its  occupant  at  that 
time.  He  thoroughly  enjoyed,  however,  renewing  his  acquaint- 
ance with  it.  We  sat  again  in  the  ground  floor  room  which  had 
been  the  study  of  the  country  parson,  good  Dr.  Ezra  Ripley ; 
we  looked  again  into  the  ten-foot-square  apartment  in  the  south 
gable  where  Emerson  had  written,  and  afterward  Hawthorne ; 
and  peered  into  the  garret  where  Hawthorne  found  a  chestfull 
of  Parson  Ripley's  sermons.  Meanwhile  our  talk  sped  on. 
First  was  recalled  Emerson's  early  association  with  the  place ; 
then  the  four  years'  life  of  the  Hawthornes  here  in  the  forties, 
begun  with  their  honeymoon. 

Percy  remembered  what  had  been  told  him,  when  we  were 
here  before,  of  the  history  of  the  Manse  and  the  relationship 
of  the  Emersons  and  the  Ripleys,  —  that  our  Emerson's  grand- 
father, William  Emerson,  the  patriot  minister  in  the  Concord 
Fight,  built  the  Manse  in  1765,  when  he  became  the  Concord  min- 
ister and  had  married  his  predecessor's  daughter,  Phebe  Bliss ; 
and  that  Ezra  Eipley,  William  Emerson's  successor  in  the 
church  and  the  parsonage,  marrying  his  widow,  became  our 
Emerson's  step-grandfather.  But,  although  these  facts  were 
clear  in  Percy's  mind,  he  did  not  realize  how  closely  the 
Manse,  as  the  ancestral  home,  was  connected  with  Emerson,  till 
he  had  absorbed  more  of  the  story  of  Emerson's  boyhood  and 
youth. 

"  Emerson  first  came  here  to  live,"  I  related,  "  when  he  was 
a  boy  of  eight.  His  father,  the  Boston  minister,  died  in  the 
spring  of  1813,  leaving  the  mother  with  five  little  boys,  the 
oldest  but  ten,  to  provide  for.  Toward  the  close  of  the  next 
year  the  family,  still  living  in  Boston,  began  to  feel  the  pinch 
of  poverty.  -Then  the  good  Dr.  Ripley  gathered  them  into  the 
Manse,  and  this  was  their  home  for  nearly  a  year.  Ralph 
Waldo  went  to  a  public  school,  wrote  boyish  verses,  and  enter- 
tained his  earliest  Concord  audiences  with  occasional  recita- 


408 


LITER  A  R  Y  PIL  GRIN  A  GHS. 


tions  of  poetry,  being  set  up  on  a  sugar  barrel  for  a  platform, 
in  the  village  grocery.  When  the  family  returned  to  Boston, 
and  the  mother  took  the  little  house  on  Beacon  Hill  to  ( keep 

boarders,'  Dr.  Kip- 
ley  sent  them  a 
Concord  cow ;  and 
one  of  the  <  chores ' 
of  the  youthful 
Ralph  Waldo  was 
the  driving  of  this 
cow  over  Beacon 
Street  to  her  pas- 
turage on  Boston 
Common.  Boston 
continued  the  fam- 
ily home  through 
the  next  ten  years, 
but  the  brothers 
were  often  in  Con- 
cord on  visits  to 
their  grand-par- 
ents. Ralph  Waldo 
was  wont  to  accom- 
pany  his  step- 
grandfather  in  the 
chaise  on  the  min- 
ister's pastoral  vis- 
its. So  he  came  to 
learn  <  the  histories 

ENTRY   TO   THE   OLD    MANSE. 

of  the  families  who 

lived  on  the  scattered  farms  of  the  river  town,  many  of  whom 
in  the  sixth  generation  still  tilled  the  holdings  originally 
granted  their  ancestors;'  while  at  the  parsonage  he  saw  the 
leading  townspeople  who  called  there,  for  the  old  minister  was 
4  both  shepherd  and  judge  of  the  people.' 


SUDBUBY  AND  CONCORD.  409 

"Emerson  entered  Harvard  College  at  fourteen,  following 
his  elder  brother  William.  As  '  President's  Freshman/  he 
carried  official  messages  for  the  president  to  the  students  and 
officers,  in  return  for  a  room  in  the  president's  house,  —  the 
old  Wadsworth  House  on  the  college  grounds.  His  way 
through  college  was  helped  along  by  earnings  in  teaching 
through  the  vacations,  and  in  other  ways.  In  his  sophmore 
year  he  waited  on  the  juniors'  table  at  Commons,  and  so  offset 
part  of  the  price  of  his  board.  Winning  the  five  dollars  at  the 
Boylston  prize  declamation,  he  sent  the  money  home,  hoping 
that  his  mother  would  buy  a  shawl  with  it;  but  the  brother, 
William,  then  the  head  of  the  house,  used  it  to  pay  off  the 
family  baker's  bill.  When  he  was  in  his  senior  year  his 
younger  brother,  Edward,  entered  the  college  as  freshman. 
So  three  sons  were  put  through  college  by  the  noble  mother, 
and  a  fourth,  Charles,  was  bred  for  the  law. 

"  After  his  graduation  Ralph  Waldo  spent  some  years  in 
teaching  at  intervals,  —  in  his  brother  William's  school  for 
young  women  in  Boston,  where  some  of  the  pupils  were  of  the 
same  age  as  the  shy  assistant  teacher,  later  at  the  academy  in 
Chelmsford,  at  a  subsequent  period  in  his  brother  Edward's 
school  in  Roxbury,  and  lastly  in  a  school  of  his  own  in  Cam- 
bridge. Meanwhile  he  studied  at  the  Divinity  School  at 
Cambridge,  when  able,  but  ill  health  repeatedly  broke  his 
studies  and  other  occupations.  He  preached  his  first  sermon 
in  his  Uncle  Ripley's  pulpit  in  Waltham  while  he  was  a 
divinity  student ;  and  after  he  was  regularly  '  appropriated  to 
preach '  he  supplied  the  Concord  pulpit  for  a  brief  season  dur- 
ing a  visit  of  his  step-grandfather  to  Washington. 

"  His  return  to  the  Old  Manse  to  live  was  in  the  autumn  of 
1834,  two  and  a  half  years  after  the  death  of  his  first  wife, 
Ellen  Tucker,  of  Concord,  New  Hampshire,  who  died  of  con- 
sumption a  short  year  and  a  half  after  their  marriage.  He 
had  then  finally  withdrawn  from  the  pulpit ;  and  he  came  with 
his  mother  to  board  here,  and  to  devote  himself  uninterruptedly 


410 


LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 


to  literary  work.  He  established  his  study  in  the  south  gable, 
from  a  window  of  which  his  grandmother  had  looked  out  upon 
the  Fight  at  the  Bridge;  and  there  he  wrote  his  < Nature.' 
When  finally  settled  he  wrote  in  his  journal:  'Hail  to  the 
quiet  fields  of  my  fathers.  Not  wholly  unattended  by  super- 
natural friendship  and  favor  let  me  come  hither.  Bless  my 

purposes  as  they  are  sim- 
ple and  virtuous.  .  .  . 
Henceforth  I  design  not 
to  utter  any  speech,  poem, 
or  book  that  is  not  en- 
tirely and  peculiarly  my 
work.  I  will  say  at  pub- 
lic lectures  and  the  like, 
those  things  which  I  have 
meditated  for  their  own 
sake,  and  not  for  the  first 
time  with  a  view  to  that 
occasion.' " 

Turning  to  the  Haw- 
thorn es,  I  remarked  that 
their  life  in  the  Old 
Manse  was  most  idylic. 
When  Hawthorne  first 
visited  the  place,  a  month 
before  their  marriage, 
with  the  purpose  of  hir- 
ing it  for  their  home,  the 
ancient  house  was  empty,  the  aged  minister  '  having  died  a 
while  before ;  and  it  showed  all  the  "  dust  and  disarray  that 
might  be  supposed  to  have  gathered  about  him  in  the  course 
of  sixty  years  of  occupancy."  The  walls  and  panels  of  the 
rooms,  and  the  huge  cross-beams  had  a  venerable  tinge  of 
brown.  The  furniture  consisted  of  "  high-backed,  short-legged, 
rheumatic  chairs,  small,  old  tables,  bedsteads  with  lofty  posts. 


HAWTHORNE   AND    HIS    PUBLISHERS. 


SUDBURY  AND   CONCORD.  411 

stately  chests  of  drawers,  looking-glasses  in  antique  black 
frames."  Upon  taking  possession  the  Hawthornes  transformed 
the  interior  into  what  the  bride  termed  "  Our  Paradise  "  and 
shutting  out  the  rougher  world  they  gave  themselves  up  to  its 
enjoyment.  The  old  minister's  sleeping-room  on  the  ground 
floor  was  converted  into  a  parlor,  and  «  by  the  aid  of  cheerful 
paint  and  paper,  a  gladsome  carpet,  pictures  and  engravings, 
new  furniture,  bijouterie,  and  a  daily  supply  of  flowers/'  Haw- 
thorne noted  in  his  journal,  it  became  "  one  of  the  prettiest  and 
pleasantest  rooms  in  the  whole  world."  "  The  shade  of  our 
departed  host  will  never  haunt  it,"  he  added,  "  for  its  aspect 
has  been  changed  as  completely  as  the  scenery  of  a  theater : 
probably  the  ghost  gave  one  peep  into  it,  uttered  a  groan,  and 
vanished  forever." 

The  ancient  furniture,  however,  was  not  banished  from  the 
house.  The  guest  chamber,  on  the  second  floor,  contained  the 
most  presentable  of  it.  Hawthorne  makes  the  observation, 
which  many  of  us  to-day  would  echo,  that  "  after  all,  the  mod- 
erns have  invented  nothing  better,  as  chamber  furniture,  than 
these  chests  of  drawers  which  stand  on  four  slender  legs,  and 
rear  an  absolute  tower  of  mahogony  to  the  ceiling,  the  whole 
terminating  in  a  fantastically  carved  summit.  Such  a  venera- 
ble structure  adorns  our  guest  chamber." 

Into  the  study,  which  had  been  Emerson's,  was  brought  the 
furniture  of  Hawthorne's  bachelor-room  in  Boston ;  but  with  a 
happier  disposal  of  things  here  than  there.  A  vase  of  flowers  on 
one  of  the  bookcases  betokened  the  woman's  touch,  and  a  larger 
bronze  vase  of  graceful  ferns  surmounting  the  bureau.  Haw- 
thorne liked  the  smallness  of  this  study,  for  he  could  never,  he 
said,  compress  his  thoughts  sufficiently  to  write  in  a  very 
spacious  room.  Two  of  its  three  windows  were  shaded  by  a 
large  and  beautiful  willow  tree  which  swept  against  the  over- 
hanging eaves.  From  these  windows  he  had  a  view  into  the 
orchard  at  the  back  of  the  house,  and,  beyond,  a  glimpse  of  the 
river.  The  other  window  was  the  one  from  which  Emerson's 


412 


LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 


grandmother  looked  out  upon  the  Fight  at  the  Bridge.  Upon 
one  of  the  western  windows  the  Hawthornes  cut  these  in- 
scriptions with  a  diamond  in  their  last  spring  here:  "Nath1 
Hawthorne.  This  is  his  study.  1843."  "Inscribed  by  my 
Husband  at  Sunset,  April  3d  1843,  in  the  Gold  Light.  S.  A. 
H."  "  Man's  Accidents  are  God's  Purposes.  Sophia  A.  Haw- 
thorne, 1843." 

These  and  other  changes  made  by  them  in  the  interior  of 
the  house  Hawthorne  pronounced  to  be  in  perfectly  good  taste, 

though  the  heavy  old  beams 
and  high  wainscoting  of 
the  walls  spoke  of  ages 
gone  by.  "  The  cheerful 
paper-hangings  have  the 
air  of  belonging  to  the  old 
walls,"  he  wrote ;  "  and 
such  modernisms  as  astral 
lamps,  card-tables,  gilded 
cologne-bottles,  silver  taper- 
stands,  and  bronze  and 
alabaster  flower-vases,"  did 
not  seem  "at  all  imperti- 
nent." "It  is  thus,"  he 
mused,  "  that  an  aged  man 
may  keep  his  heart  warm 
for  new  things  and  new 

friends,  and  often  furnish  himself  anew  with  ideas  :  though  it 
would  not  be  graceful  for  him  to  attempt  to  suit  his  exterior  to 
the  passing  fashions  of  the  day."  So  the  exterior,  with  its  sober, 
grayish  hue,  was  left  unchanged.  To  repaint  its  venerable  face, 
he  declared,  would  be  a  real  sacrifice.  "  It  would  look  like  old 
Dr.  Ripley  in  a  brown  wig." 

How  their  life  glided  on  in  and  about  the  old  house  Mrs. 
Hawthorne  disclosed  in  her  home  letters :  —  and  I  read  these 
picturesque  extracts  ;  — - 


EZRA    RIPLEY. 


SUDBUKY  AND   CONCORD.  413 

"  '  December.  ...  In  the  afternoon  aud  evening  I  sit  in  the  fctudy 
with  him.  It  is  the  pleasantest  niche  in  our  temple.  We  watch  the 
sun,  together,  descending  in  purple  and  gold,  in  every  variety  of  magniii- 
cence,  over  the  river.  Lately,  we  go  on  the  river,  which  is  now  frozen ; 
my  lord  to  skate,  and  I  to  run  and  slide,  during  the  dolphin-death  of  day. 
1  consider  my  husband  a  rare  sight,  gliding  over  the  icy  stream.  For, 
wrapped  in  his  cloak,  he  looks  very  graceful ;  perpetually  darting  from 
ine  in  long,  sweeping  curves,  and  returning  again  —  again  to  shoot 
away.  .  .  .  Often  other  skaters  appear,  —  young  men  and  boys,  —  who 
principally  interest  me  as  foils  to  my  husband,  who,  in  the  presence  of 
nature,  loses  all  shyness,  and  moves  regally  like  a  king. 

"  'One  afternoon  Mr.  Emerson  and  Mr.  Thoreau  went  with  him  down 
the  river.  Henry  Thoreau  is  an  experienced  skater,  and  was  figuring 
dithyranibic  dances  and  Bacchic,  leaps  on  the  ice  —  very  remarkable,  but 
very  ugly,  methought.  Next  him,  followed  Mr.  Hawthorne  who,  wrapped 
in  his  cloak,  moved  like  a  self-impelled  Greek  statue,  stately  and  grave. 
Mr.  Emerson  closed  the  line,  evidently  too  weary  to  hold  himself  erect, 
pitching  headforemost,  half  lying  iii  the  air. 


"  '  In  the  evening  we  are  gathered  together  beneath  our  luminous  star, 
in  the  Study,  for  we  have  a  large  hanging  astral  lamp,  which  beautifully 
illumines  the  room,  with  its  walls  of  pale  yellow  paper,  its  Holy  Mother 
over  the  fireplace,  and  pleasant  books,  and  its  pretty  bronze  vase,  on  one 
of  the  secretaries,  filled  with  ferns.  Except  once  Mr.  Emerson,  no  one 
hunts  us  out  in  the  evening.  Then  Mr.  Hawthorne  reads  to  me.  .  .  . 
Mr.  Hawthorne  writes  all  the  morning. 

"  '  August  Mr.  Hawthorne  has  written  a  little,  and  cultivated  his 
garden  a  great  deal.  .  .  .  I  planted  flowers  which  grow  pretty  well.  We 
have  voyaged  on  the  river  constantly,  harvesting  water-lilies  and  lately 
cardinal -flowers,  which  enrich  the  borders  with  their  superb  scarlet 
mantles  in  great  conclaves.'  " 

With  the  villagers  Hawthorne  had  little  or  no  intercourse, 
and  in  his  walks  he  avoided  the  town  as  much  as  possible. 
Callers  at  the  Manse  were  rare,  except  a  chosen  few  who  were 
welcomed  across  its  threshold.  Of  one  call  by  Emerson  and 
Thoreau  upon  the  shy  and  reserved  recluse,  I  quoted  this  droll 
account  given  by  Curtis  :  — 

"They  were  shown  into  the  little  parlor  upon  the  avenue  and  Haw- 
thorne presently  entered.  Each  of  the  guests  sat  upright  in  his  chair 
like  a  Roman  senator.  To  them  Hawthorne  seemed  like  a  Dacian  king. 


414  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

The  call  went  on,  but  in  a  most  melancholy  manner.  The  host  sat  per- 
fectly still,  or  occasionally  propounded  a  question  which  Thoreau 
answered  accurately,  and  there  the  thread  broke  short  off.  Emerson 
delivered  sentences  that  only  needed  the  setting  of  an  essay  to  charm  the 
world.  .  .  .  Had  they  all  been  lying  idly  by  the  river-bank,  or  strolling 
in  Thoreau1  s  blackberry  pastures  the  result  would  have  been  utterly 
different.  But  imprisoned  in  the  proprieties  of  a  parlor,  each  a  wild 
man  in  his  way,  with  a  necessity  of  talking  inherent  in  the  nature  of 
the  occasion,  there  was  only  a  waste  of  treasure." 

The  principal  work  of  Hawthorne  in  this  old  house  was 
the  preparation  for  publication,  of  his  « Mosses  from  an  Old 
Manse,"  which  appeared  just  before  his  removal  back  to 
Salem.  Five  or  six  of  its  sketches  were  also  written  here. 
They  were  first  published  in  the  Democratic  Review,  Hawthorne 
receiving  only  a  pittance  for  them.  While  here  in  1844, 
upon  the  election  of  Polk  to  the  Presidency,  his  thoughts 
were  turned  toward  another  government  position,  for  the 
security  which  it  would  give  him  in  a  regular  salary,  as  he 
had  found  in  his  earlier  service  of  two  years  in  the  Boston 
Custom  House.  But  it  was  not  till  1846  that  the  place  was 
finally  obtained,  in  the  surveyorship  at  the  Salem  Custom  House 
of  which  we  heard  in  our  pilgrimage  to  "  Hawthorne's  Salem." 
Una,  his  first  child,  named  from  "  The  Faerie  Queen,"  was 
born  in  the  Manse. 

It  was  dusk  when  we  made  our  leisurely  way  to  the 
station  on  the  upper  railroad  near  by  the  Old  Manse,  for  our 
return  journey  through  Lexington  to  Boston. . 


XX. 

IN   THE  CONNECTICUT  VALLEY. 

Along  the  way  from  Boston  to  Springfield.  —Landmarks  on  connecting 
lines.  —  Birthplace  of  Hannah  Adams.  —  Story  of  the  first  native 
American  woman  to  make  books.  —  Kate  Sanborn  and  her  "Aban- 
doned Farm."  —  Birthplace  and  early  life  of  George  Bancroft.  —  Long- 
fellow's poem  on  "The  Arsenal  at  Springfield."  —  Landmarks  of 
Dr.  Josiah  G.  Holland.—  His  "Timothy  Titcomb"  Letters  and  his 
popular  poems.  —  Samuel  Bowles,  the  early  independent  editor.  — 
Edward  Bellamy's  home  at  Chicopee  Falls.  —  His  "Looking  Back- 
ward "  and  later  works.  — Jonathan  Edwards,  the  Puritan  metaphy- 
sician.—  Timothy  Dwight  and  the  Dwight  family.  —  Smith  College 
for  Women.  — The  Round  Hill  School  of  Bancroft  and  Cogswell.  — 
Bancroft's  Northampton  and  later  life.  — George  W.  Cable  at  "  Tarry- 
awhile." 

HAVING  covered  eastern  New  England  according  to  our 
schedule,  our  course  was  now  westward.  Since  Percy  was  not 
to  return  to  Boston,  but  was  to  leave  me  at  New  Haven,  where 
our  pilgrimages  were  to  end,  he  expressed  his  heavier  baggage 
—  "  traps  "  was  his  word  —  to  that  city,  and  we  started  off  for 
the  longest  continuous  railroad  ride  of  all  our  journeyings  thus 
far,  encumbered  only  with  the  few  things  we  had  carried  on 
our  shorter  trips.  This  ride  was  from  Boston  to  Springfield  in 
the  Connecticut  Valley.  Thence  we  were  to  proceed  to  North- 
ampton, where,  after  our  sight-seeing,  we  were  to  spend  the 
night. 

We  took  an  early  forenoon  train  on  the  Boston  and  Albany 
Railroad,  and  secured  chairs  in  the  parlor  car  that  we  might 
enjoy  the  lookout  from  the  broad  windows,  and  be  as  comfort- 
able as  possible,  for  the  day  was  warm.  For  this  journey  of 
two  and  a  half  hours  I  took  along  a  special  note-book  con- 

415 


416  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

taining  data  about  the  few  literary  landmarks  in  the  region 
through  which  we  should  pass,  but  which  we  could  not  afford 
the  time  to  visit,  since  that  would  involve  "  stopping  over  "  at 
one  or  two  stations. 

Our  train  was  "  express  "  with  few  stops  between  Boston 
and  Springfield.  At  South  Framingham,  the  first  stop,  we 
were  not  far  from  two  interesting  landmarks  reached  by  con- 
necting railway  lines.  They  were  landmarks,  I  observed,  a 
century  apart,  —  one  ancient,  the  other  modern. 


BIRTHPLACE    OF    HANNAH    ADAMS,    MEDFIELD. 

The  first  one  to  which  I  referred  was  in  the  pastoral  town 
of  Medfield,  within  twenty  miles  of  Boston.  It  was  the  birth- 
place of  the  first  native  American  woman  to  publish  a  book 
under  her  own  name,  and  the  first,  probably,  to  devote  herself 
distinctly  to  a  literary  life.  "  She  was  Hannah  Adams  (born, 
1775  —  died  in  Brookline,  near  Boston,  1831),"  I  went  on  to 
give  her  story,  "  and  her  pioneer  work  was  a  sort  of  history  or 
cyclopaedia  of  religions,  entitled  <  A  View  of  Religious  Opin- 
ions/ Later  and  enlarged  editions  were  subsequently  published 
under  different  titles,  and  the  work  was  reproduced  in  England. 
'  A  History  of  New  England  '  followed  the  first  history  by  an 


CONNECTICUT   VALLEY.  417 


American  woman  ;  and  later  a  ponderous  <  History  of  the 
Jews.'  Born  in  *  humble  obscurity  '  in  a  remote  country  town, 
in  part  self-educated,  living  at  a  time  when  a  learned  woman 
in  New  England  was  a  rarity,  almost  a  thing  unique,  with  ill- 
health  and  many  cares,  often  poor  and  obliged  to  resort  to 
various  occupations  for  her  sustenance,  while  doggedly  pur- 
suing her  studies  and  diligently  working  her  pen,  what  this 
woman  accomplished  was  really  astonishing.  Though  she  left 
no  permanent  mark  on  our  literature,  she  won  a  place  close  up 
to  her  best  literary  contemporaries,  and  the  fellowship  of 
learned  men  of  her  day. 

"Her  birthplace  was  an  ancestral  farm  which  came  to  her 
father  from  her  grandfather,  in  his  time  one  of  the  largest 
landholders  in  the  township,  of  which  his  ancestor  was  one  of 
the  founders.  The  father  was  an  educated  man,  a  graduate  of 
Harvard  College,  and  more  student  than  farmer.  Yielding 
to  his  father's  desire  that  he  should  remain  on  the  farm,  he 
appeased  his  disappointment  by  opening  a  shop  in  the  village 
for  the  sale  of  English  goods  and  books.  Fortunately  for  his 
daughter,  books  constituted  the  larger  part  of  his  stock  ;  and 
also  fortunately  for  her,  some  young  divinity  students  for  a 
time  boarded  with  the  family.  The  books  she  devoured  ;  while 
from  the  students,  whose  offer  to  teach  her  was  eagerly  grasped, 
she  acquired  Latin,  Greek,  geography  and  logic.  Her  father 
was  her  first  teacher,  and  from  him  she  learned  the  three 
R's,  —  reading,  writing,  and  arithmetic.  Her  reading  through 
her  girlhood  was  of  wide  range,  including  history,  biography, 
novels,  and  the  English  poets,  —  Milton,  Thomson,  and  Young 
being  her  favorites,  much  of  whose  works  she  committed  to 
memory.  Of  the  novels,  she  afterward  thought,  gentle  soul  ! 
she  read  more  than  was  good  for  her,  since  they  gave  her  '  a 
false  idea  of  life,'  the  {  world  which  her  imagination  made 
being  not  what  the  real  world  was.' 

"  When  she  was  eleven  her  mother  died,  leaving  five  chil- 
dren ;  and  two  years  afterward  her  father  failed  in  business. 


418 


LITERARY 


Then  she  went  to  work  to  help  support  the  family  by  sewing, 
knitting,  spinning,  and  weaving  bobbin  lace.  Prom  the  lace- 
making  she  derived  the  most  profit,  and  when,  after  the  Revo- 
lution, this  resource  failed,  lace  then  being  imported,  she  fell 
into  narrow  straits.  Opportunity,  however,  soon  came  for  her 
to  apply  her  learning  to  advantage.  She  tutored  three  young 
men  of  her  neighborhood  in  Latin  and  Greek ;  and  so  well  was 
this  work  done  that  one  of  them  afterward  said  that  her  tuition 
principally  fitted  him  for  college. 

"  Hannah  Adams's  first  literary  work  was  the  result,  as  her 
autobiography  indicates,  of  her  dissatisfaction  with  the  prej- 
udice of  most  writers  on  the 
various  religious  sects.  Her 
mind  had  been  turned  to  the 
subject  by  reading  a  manu- 
script from  Broughton's  Dic- 
tionary giving  an  account  of 
some  of  the  most  common  of 
the  sects.  The  publication 
of  ( A  View  of  Religious  Opin- 
ions '  was  ventured  in  1784,  in 
accordance  with  the  custom 
of  the  time,  after  subscriptions 
had  been  obtained  to  the  '  pro- 
posal' of  the  work,  sufficient 
in  number  to  warrant  its  issue. 
It  was  fairly  profitable,  but 
owing  to  a  bad  bargain  with 
the  printer  the  author's  re- 
turns were  slight.  A  second  edition  with  additions,  secured 
by  copyright,  then  newly  established  by  law,  was  published  in 
1791,  at  the  instance  of  influential  Boston  friends  whom  the 
first  issue  had  made  for  her.  This  edition  was  dedicated  to 
John  Adams,  then  Vice-President  of  the  United  States,  who 
had  headed  its  list  of  subscribers,  which  included  such  leading 


HANNAH    ADAMS. 


IN   THE   CONNECTICUT   VALLEY.  419 

names  as  Samuel  Adams,  John  Hancock,  President  Willard  of 
Harvard  College,  Kt.  Kev.  John  Carroll,  D.D.,  the  Eoman 
Catholic  Bishop  of  Baltimore,  the  Rev.  Henry  Ware,  and  the 
Rev.  Adoniram  Judson,  father  of  the  missionary.  Her  old 
father  was  a  most  enthusiastic  seller  of  the  book,  traveling 
about  the  country  on  horseback  with  saddle-bags  filled  with  the 
volumes.  He  must  himself  have  been  an  interesting  character. 
He  had  found  solace  in  books  through  his  ill  fortunes,  and  was 
happiest  when  making  trips  to  the  Harvard  College  Library. 
Once  upon  entering  the  building,  it  is  related,  he  lifted  up  his 
hands  and  exclaimed  with  great  fervor,  *  I'd  rather  be  libra- 
rian of  Harvard  College  than  emperor  of  all  the  Russias ! ' 

"  Hannah  Adams's  second  work,  her  '  Summary  History  of 
New  England,'  was  written  after  an  experience  in  country 
school-teaching,  and  was  published  in  1799.  In  1801  a  third 
edition  of  her  first  work,  further  enlarged,  was  brought  out. 
Next  she  prepared  a  volume  of  selections  from  various 
authors  under  the  title  of  '  Truth  and  Excellence  of  the 
Christian  Religion/  working  up  her  material  in  the  Boston 
bookshops,  since  she  was  unable  to  purchase  or  borrow  the 
books  she  desired  to  consult.  In  1805  appeared  an  abridgment 
of  the  history  of  New  England,  which  brought  her  into  con- 
flict with  the  Rev.  Jedidiah  Morse,  author  of  the  first  geog- 
raphy of  the  United  States  (father,  by  the  way,  of  Samuel 
F.  B.  Morse,  the  inventor  of  the  magnetic  telegraph),  who  had 
published  a  similar  work.  A  sharp  controversy  ensued  in 
which  the  woman's  side  was  championed  by  several  friends, 
chief  among  them  being  William  S.  Shaw,  one  of  the  Anthol- 
ogy Club  men  of  whom  we  talked  when  in  Boston. 

"  The  material  for  her  «  History  of  the  Jews  '  was  largely 
gathered  in  the  Boston  Athenaeum,  liberty  of  which  was  given 
her  by  Mr.  Shaw.  She  also  found  a  friend  and  helper 
in  young  Mr.  Buckminster,  minister  of  the  Brattle-Square 
Church,  another  of  the  Anthology  Club  group,  who  gave  her 
the  freedom  of  his  study  and  library.  President  John  Adams, 


420  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

too,  gave  her  the  use  of  his  library,  then  in  his  home  in 
Quincy.  While  this  history  was  progressing  she  was  obliged 
to  work  at  straw  braiding  for  her  support.  But  at  length, 
through  the  energy  of  some  Boston  women  of  station,  a  small 
annuity  was  subscribed  for  her  which  rendered  her  closing 
years  comfortable.  A  fourth  edition  of  her  first  work, 
with  further  additions,  appeared  in  1817,  under  the  broader 
title  of  (  A  Dictionary  of  All  Religions  and  Religious  Denomi- 
nations/ Jared  Sparks  gave  it  his  stamp  of  approval. 
Her  last  book,  l  Letters  on  the  Gospels/  was  written  when  she 
was  seventy.  She  drifted  cheerfully  into  old  age.  She  enter- 
tained the  friends  who  gathered  in  her  little  parlor  with 
recitations  of  the  poetry  which  she  learned  in  girlhood. 
She  could  repeat  these  verses  'for  three  months  together/ 
although  she  was  ( troubled  continually  by  forgetting  where 
she  had  laid  a  pencil  or  a  pen.'  (  An  interesting  story  this,  of 
the  first  professional  American  woman  of  letters,  is  it  not  ?  " 

The  other  landmark  in  the  neighborhood  of  South  Framing- 
ham  was  "  Breezy  Meadows,"  the  unique  home  of  a  literary 
woman  of  to-day  —  Katherine  Abbott  Sanborn  (born  in  Han- 
over, N.  H.,  1839  — ),  or  Kate  Sanborn,  as  her  pen-name  is, 
"  the  literary  woman  who  adopted  an  abandoned  farm." 
"  Breezy  Meadows  "  lies  within  the  precincts  of  the  old  town 
of  Holliston,  at  Metcalf,  distant  about  fifteen  minutes  by 
a  branch  railroad  from  the  South  Framingham  station. 

"  Metcalf/7  I  remarked,  "  is  a  rural  place,  ( with  no  tele- 
graph office,  and  but  one  mail  a  day,  which  brings  the  letters 
of  day  before  yesterday/  Miss  Sanborn  tells  us.  Here,  from  a 
forlorn  abandoned  farm,  such  as  some  country  parts  of  New 
England  to-day  abound  in,  she  has  through  her  own  efforts 
and  cleverness  produced  a  seat  of  beauty  and  of  profit — in 
contentment.  The  house,  a  century  old,  has  been  furbished  in 
colonial  fashion.  In  tearing  off  the  worn  wall-papers,  curious 
hand-painting  was  revealed ;  one  paper,  put  on  before  the  in- 
vention of  rolls  of  paper  and  made  in  small  squares,  has  been 


IN   THE   CONNECTICUT   VALLEY. 


421 


preserved.  The  front  hall  has.  large  chimney  recesses.  The 
great  dining-room  has  a  huge  fireplace,  burning  logs  four  feet 
long  in  the  twelve-foot  chimney,  with  a  steaming  kettle  sus- 
pended from  an  ancient  crane.  Above  the  fireplace  you  read 

the  inscription :  - — 

'To  sit 

in  the  presence  of  my  cottage  fire  and 
listen  to  the  flapping  of  the  flame  or 
kettle  whispering  its  faint  Undersong.' 

The  library,  with  great  easy-chairs  and  mahogany  desk,  is 
lined  with  books,  and  the  stairway  walls  on  either  side  are 


THE    ABANDONED    FARM    BEAUTIFIED. 

covered  with  pictures  and  portraits.  The  deep  attic  is  trans- 
formed into  a  billiard-room.  All  over  the  house  are  scattered 
antique  treasures.  In  the  barns  and  pastures  are  fine  live 
stock,  and  on  the  place  are  a  half-dozen  magnificent  dogs, 
splendid  St.  Bernards  and  handsome  Yorkshire  terriers. 

"The  farm  has  been  intelligently  worked  by  its  mistress 
for  all  sorts  of  crops,  with  results  equalling  if  not  excelling 


422  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

other  farms  in  the  vicinity.  Every  variety  of  farming  has 
been  entered  into,  testing  both  the  capacity  of  women  for  such 
undertaking,  and  the  profitableness  of  it;  and  the  conclusion 
that  Miss  Sanborn  has  reached  is  that  'a  woman  must  be 
sharper  than  a  razor  to  farm  and  not  become  bankrupt/  There 
are  compensations,  she  admits,  which  almost  balance  the  hostile 
forces  that  a  woman  must  meet,  but  they  are  only  to  be  found 
by  the  genuine  lover  of  country  life. 

"  One  practical  outcome  of  her  experiment  and  observations 
is  her  movement  for  reform  in  woman's  life  on  the  farm.  She 
puts  what  exists  yet  to  a  large  degree,  and  what  might  be,  in 
this  fashion :  — 

"  '  Women  on  the  farms  as  I  know  them  have  too  much  work  and  too 
little  recreation :  a  steady,  treadmill  grind,  and  few  outings  ;  few  chances 
to  exchange  ideas  and  courtesies  with  women  that  are  not  on  farms.  .  .  . 
They  should  have  horses  to  drive  ;  should  belong  to  granges  and  women's 
clubs,  and  take  part  in  the  exercises  with  voice  and  pen.  They  should  be 
interested  in  the  county  fairs,  the  poultry  shows,  church  sociables,  and 
sewing  societies  ;  should  have  at  least  a  yearly  trip^to  some  city  ;  plenty  of 
good  papers  and  magazines,  to  be  had  now  for  almost  nothing,  considering 
their  value  ;  and  should  belong  to  a  book  club,  to  enjoy  the  newest  publi- 
cations. Neighborhood  meetings  of  young  and  old  should  be  held  once  a 
fortnight,  to  talk  over  what  has  been  thus  enjoyed.  .  .  .  As  to  women's 
work  on  the  farm,  I  would  aim  to  have  it  simplified.  I  would  have  dish- 
washing machines  for  the  wives,  as  men  have  machines  to  simplify  their 
labor.  Laundry  work  should  be  done  in  some  cooperative  way  that  is 
feasible.  ...  I  should  like  to  bring  the  city  nearer  the  quiet  country 
life,  and  would  suggest  an  occasional  long  trip  suclTas  the  teachers  are 
now  taking  in  their  vacations  —  and  they  have  less  to  spend  than  does  the 
average  farmer.  I  believe  in  women  having  time  to  adorn  themselves  and 
beautify  their  homes ;  and  they  will  always  do  this  unless  crushed  in  spirit 
by  never-ending  toil.' " 

"  All  that  about  the  hardship  of  farm-life  may  be  true  of 
New  England,  but  it  isn't  of  the  West,"  observed  Percy,  loyal 
to  his  own ;  "  Miss  Sanborn  ought  to  take  a  trip  among  our 
Western  farms." 

"I  dare  say,"  I  acquiesced,  "in  such  a  journey  she  would 


IN  THE  CONNECTICUT  VALLEY.  423 

find  much  to  engage  her  vivacious  pen,  and  would  profit  while 
entertaining  her  public. 

« Investigation  into  farm-life,  real  and  ideal,  however,"  I 
chatted  on,  "  has  been  only  an  incident  in  Kate  Sanborn's  liter- 
ary career.  That  her  abandoned  farm  experiment  has  carried 
her  name  so  far  afield  is  due,  doubtless,  to  the  novelty  of  it, 
together  with  the  originality,  humor,  and  sensibleness  of  the 
rambling  essays  which  go  to  make  up  her  books  upon  it.  She  has 
among  other  distinctions  that  of  having  been  a  pioneer  woman 
lecturer  on  literary  themes,  discoursing  to  classes  of  women  in 
drawing-rooms  long  before  parlor  lecturing  by  women  to  classes 
of  women  became  common.  For  a  number  of  years  she  held 
the  professorship  of  literature  in  Smith  College  for  Women  at 
Northampton.  She  has  written  on  many  subjects  and  pub- 
lished numerous  books  of  essays,  a  novel,  and  a  system  of 
labor-saving  literature  lessons.  Miss  Sanborn  is  the  daughter 
of  a  Dartmouth  College  professor,  and  granddaughter  of  Daniel 
Webster's  brother  Ezekiel,  the  school-teacher.  Brought  up  in 
the  fresh-water  college  town  and  in  the  literary  atmosphere  of 
her  father's  home,  and  loving  books,  she  turned  naturally  to 
literary  work  as  her  avocation.  I  am  told  that  she  earned  her 
first  money  from  her  pen  before  she  had  reached  her  teens." 

At  Worcester,  as  our  train  rolled  into  the  station  and  came 
to  a  standstill  for  a  few  moments,  I  remarked  that  this  city 
was  interesting  as  the  birthplace  of  George  Bancroft,  the  histo- 
rian (born  1800 — died  1891,  in  his  ninety-first  year).  "He 
was  the  son,"  I  related,  "  of  the  first  minister  of  the  Second 
Parish  of  Worcester,  —  the  Kev.  Dr.  Aaron  Bancroft,  —  who 
held  this  pastorate  for  more  than  half  a  century,  till  his  death 
at  eighty -four.  The  historian's  Worcester  life  was  only  a  boy's 
life,  for  he  left  home  in  his  eleventh  year  to  go  to  Phillips 
(Ex,eter)  Academy,  and  remained  there,  through  vacations  as 
well  as  term  time,  till  his  entrance  at  Harvard  College. 
Though  never  returning  to  his  native  place  to  live,  he  retained 
a  love  for  it  all  through  his  eventful  life,  and  in  his  latter 


424  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

years  in  Washington  selected  it  as  his  place  of  burial.'  The 
site  of  his  birthplace,  on  Salisbury  Street,  is  marked,  and  his 
grave  in  the  Rural  Cemetery  is  distinguished  by  a  simple 
monument.  His  father,  the  minister,  was  a  man  of  ripe  schol- 
arship, and  Bancroft  has  been  quoted  as  saying  that  he  would 
have  been  an  eminent  historian  if  he  had  had  material  at  his 
command.  He  published  a  Life  of  Washington,  and  a  large 
number  of  volumes  of  sermons,  one  of  which,  i  On  the  Doc- 
trines of  the  Gospels,'  John  Adams  (who  when  a  youth  taught 
school  and  studied  law  in  Worcester)  commended  in  his  old 
age  with  exuberant  fancy  as  <  a  chain  of  diamonds  set  in  links 
of  gold.'" 

From  Worcester  to  Springfield  was  a  long  pull,  and  we  be- 
guiled the  time  with  much  gazing  at  the  country  landscapes 
from  the  car  windows,  and  with  a  little  talk  about  Bancroft's 
life  between  his  college  days  and  his  coming  to  Northampton, 
where  he  began  his  history-writing. 

In  this  talk  I  spoke  of  Bancroft's  determination  to  devote 
himself  to  historical  pursuits,  formed  when  he.  was  a  student 
in  the  University  of  Gottingen,  under  the  influence  of  the  histo- 
rian Heeren,  to  whom,  of  all  his  instructors  there,  he  was  most 
drawn.  This  professor's  "  Politics  of  Ancient  Greece "  he 
afterward  translated  and  published  on  this  side  of  the  water. 
"  But  before  he  began  actually  to  write  on  his  history,"  I  ob- 
served, "  he  had  indulged  his  poetic  fancy,  and  had  published 
a  thin  volume  of  poems.  He  had  also  made  translations  of 
poems  of  Goethe,  Schiller,  and  other  German  poets ;  and  had 
published  philosophical  essays. 

"  He  graduated  from  Harvard  when  he  was  only  seventeen, 
and  was  immediately  sent  abroad  for  further  study  in  Ger- 
many, a  friend  of  his  father  providing  the  means,  with  the 
purpose  especially  of  qualifying  him  for  a  college  professor- 
ship. He  studied  first  in  the  University  of  Gottingen  and 
received  his  degree  of  Ph.D.  before  he  reached  his  twentieth 
birthday.  Soon  after  he  went  to  Berlin,  where  he  was  well 


IN  THE  CONNECTICUT   VALLEY.  425 

received  by  Wilhelm  von  Humboldt  and  other  scholars,  and 
attended  lectures  on  Biblical  interpretation  and  Oriental  lan- 
guages. Later,  at  Heidelberg,  he  studied  some  time  with  the 
German  historian  Schlosser.  Then  followed  a  season  of  ex- 
tended travel  on  the  continent,  when  he  made  the  acquaintance 
of  the  Italian  poet  Manzoni,  Alexander  von  Humboldt,  and 
Byron,  visiting  the  latter  at  Monte  Nero.  At  Weimar  he 
visited  Goethe,  with  whom  he  had  first  become  acquainted 
during  his  student  days  at  Gottingen.  Thus  cultivated  by 
wide  study,  travel,  and  contact  with  scholars,  he  returned  to 
America,  and  took  up  the  teaching  of  Greek  as  a  tutor  in  Har- 
vard College.  A  year  later  he  removed  to  Northampton,  and, 
in  association  with  his  friend  Dr.  Joseph  G.  Cogswell  (afterward 
the  distinguished  superintendent  of  the  Astor  Library,  New 
York),  established  the  famous  Round  Hill  School  for  boys, 
meanwhile  getting  his  '  History  of  the  United  States '  under 
way." 

Arrived  at  Springfield,  we  dined  at  the  old  Massasoit 
House,  although  it  was  early,  —  hardly  the  luncheon  hour, 
indeed,  —  in  order  to  follow  the  custom  of  the  old  days,  I  ex- 
plained to  Percy,  when  "dinner  at  the  Massasoit"  was  a 
feature  of  the  journey  over  the  railroad,  looked  forward  to  by 
"  through  passengers  "  with  pleasant  anticipations.  Then  we 
engaged  a  carriage  and  enjoyed  a  drive  over  the  beautiful  city, 
our  route  so  planned  as  to  include  the  United  States  Arsenal 
which  inspired  Longfellow's  poem,  "  The  Arsenal  at  Spring- 
field," and  the  grave  of  Dr.  Josiah  Gilbert  Holland  (born  in 
Belchertown,  Mass.,  1819  — died  in  New  York  City,  1881),  edi- 
tor, poet,  essayist,  and  novelist. 

Along  the  way  the  story  of  Longfellow's  poem  was  recalled. 
When  on  the  wedding  journey  with  his  second  wife,  in  the 
summer  of  1843,  they  visited  the  Arsenal  among  other  places 
of  interest  in  this  city.  With  them  was  Charles  Sumner. 
While  Mr.  Sumner  was  endeavoring  to  impress  upon  the  atten- 
dant who  was  showing  them  about  that  the  money  expended 


426  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

upon  the  weapons  of  war  here  would  have  been  better  spent 
upon  a  great  library,  Mrs.  Longfellow  pleased  her  husband  by 
remarking  how  like  an  organ  the  shining  gun-barrels  ranged 
against  the  walls  looked,  and  suggesting  what  mournful  music 
Death  would  bring  from  them.  "We  grew  quite  warlike 
against  war,"  she  afterward  wrote,  "  and  I  urged  H.  to  write  a 
peace  poem."  The  poem  in  which  the  ideas  of  Mrs.  Longfel- 
low and  Sumner  were  blended  was  written  some  months  later. 

Holland's  grave  was  seen  in  the  Springfield  Cemetery  amid 
beautiful  trees.  The  granite  monument,  which  marks  it,  bears 

on  its  face  a  bronze  medallion 
of  him  —  an  excellent  like- 
ness—  and  beneath  this,  his 
name  and  dates,  with  these 
words  quoted  from  his  will: 
"For  the  great  hereafter,  I 
trust  in  the  Infinite  Love  as 
it  is  expressed  to  me  in  the 
life  and  death  of  my  Lord 
and  Savior,  Jesus  Christ." 
The  paragraph  from  which 
the  sentence  is  taken  ex- 
pressed his  gratitude  for  the 
blessings  he  had  enjoyed.  "  I 
am  thankful,"  it  ran,  "for 
having  enjoyed  the  privileges 

of  labor  and  influence,  thankful  for  wife  and  children,  thank- 
ful for  all  my  successes.  I  have  intentionally  and  consciously 
wronged  no  man,  and  if  I  know  my  heart,  I  have  forgiven  all 
my  enemies."  Then  follow  the  words  quoted. 

"  Holland,"  I  said,  "  began  his  literary  career  in  Springfield, 
and  here  met  his  first  successes.  He  was  educated  for  a  doctor, 
and  practiced  a  little,  but  the  years  before  he  took  up  the  pen 
professionally  were  devoted  largely  to  school-teaching,  the  lat- 
ter part  of  the  time  in  the  South,  in  Richmond  and  Vicksburg. 


IN   THE   CONNECTICUT   VALLEY.  427 

His  literary  career  really  began  with  his  connection  with  the 
Springfield  Republican,  as  associate  editor  of  that  paper,  being 
engaged  by  Samuel  Bowles,  its  then  young  chief,  upon  his  re- 
turn from  the  South.  He  had  previously  sent  the  Republican 
some  'Sketches  of  Plantation  Life/  which  he  had  written 
while  in  Vicksburg,  and  had  earlier  edited  a  country  paper. 

"  Two  years  after  he  joined  Mr.  Bowles,  Holland  bought  an 
interest  in  the  Republican,  and  his  intimate  association  with  it 
extended  through  seventeen  years.  During  this  period  the 
work  was  done  which  made  his  name  familiar  in  thousands  of 
American  homes.  His  earliest  writings,  which  began  to  appear 
in  book  form  in  the  mid-fifties,  were  first  published  in  the 
columns  of  the  Republican.  The  *  Timothy  Titcomb's  Letters 
to  Young  People,'  familiar  talk  over  the  conduct  of  life  and  on 
home  topics,  sprang  from  a  suggestion  of  his  chief.  Holland 
had  been  writing  a  series  on  social  topics,  when  Mr.  Bowles 
suggested  trying  his  hand  at  other  series  in  a  similar  vein. 
'Without  premeditation/  he  afterward  said,  '  I  made  a  dash  at 
another  line  of  subjects,  and  wrote  that  forenoon  the  first  of 
the  Timothy  Titcomb  Letters.'  They  ran  through  many  issues 
of  the  paper,  growing  steadily  in  popularity ;  and  when  they 
were  brought  out  between  covers  in  1858,  they  established 
Holland's  reputation  with  the  average  American  reader-  whom 
he  particularly  addressed.  His  first  work  of  fiction,  ( The  Bay 
Path/  set  in  the  time  of  colonial  Springfield,  also  first  ran 
through  the  Republican  as  a  serial;  then  'Gold  Foil';  and 
later  the  second  series  of  Titcomb  papers,  <  Letters  to  the 
Joneses.' 

"  Holland's  editorial  writings  were  often  short  lay  sermons, 
and  he  has  been  called  the  pioneer  in  using  the  newspaper's 
power  to  serve  the  preacher's  purpose.  He  was  a  writer  rather 
than  an  editor.  Bowles  was  a  born  editor.  The  two  supple- 
mented each  other. 

"  *  Bitter  Sweet'  was  Holland's  first  extended  poem.  This, 
more,  perhaps,  than  any  of  his  other  writings,  gave  him  his  lit- 


428 


LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 


erary  rank.  It  appeared  in  1858,  the  same  year  that  the  first 
*  Timothy  Titcomb '  book  came  out.  Lowell  called  it  as  genuine 
a  product  of  the  New  England  soil  as  a  golden  rod  or  an  aster. 
It  was  reproduced  in  succeeding  years  in  illustrated  editions, 
and  had  a  long  vogue.  <  Miss  Gilbert's  Career/  his  third  novel, 
published  in  1860,  was  written  in  his  cottage  on  High  Street. 
'Kathrina/  his  second  narrative  poem  (1867),  was  written 

at  <  Brightwood,'  the  later 
Springfield  home  that  he 
built  for  himself  as  he  was 
growing  prosperous.  This 
was  pleasantly  placed  a 
mile  north  of  the  business 
center  of  the  city.  The 
house  was  fashioned  after 
his  own  ideas,  and  set  in 
rural  grounds,  picturesque 
with  tall  pines,  lawns,  a 
brook,  and  rustic  bridges. 
1  Brightwood '  is  now  a 
station  on  the  Connecticut 
River  railway  line,  by 
which  we  are  to  continue 
our  journey  to  Northamp- 
ton. 

"  Holland's  Springfield 
life   practically    closed    in 

1868,  when  he  started  off  for  his  two  years'  travels  abroad ;  for 
when  he  returned  it  was  only  to  remove  his  home  to  New  York, 
where  he  was  engaged  with  Koswell  Smith  and  the  Messrs. 
Scribner  in  launching  the  first  Scribner's  Magazine.  He  was 
the  editor  of  the  first  Scribner 's  throughout  its  career,  for  after 
his  death  it  was  transformed  into  the  present  Century.  In  its 
pages  his  later  novels  — '  Seven  Oaks/  '  Arthur  Bonnicastle,' 
and  <  Nicholas  Minturn  '  —  ran  successively  as  serials." 


SAMUEL    BOWLES,  the   Independent   Editor. 


IN  TUE  CONNECTICUT  VALLEY.        429 

The  grave  of  Samuel  Bowles  (born  in  Springfield,  1826  — 
died  there,  1878),  the    pioneer,   independent   editor,  was   also 
seen  in  this  cemetery ;    and    "  down  town "  we  saw  his  best 
monument  in  the  home  of    the  still  independent  newspaper 
which  he  created. 

On  our  way  through  the  present  business  parts,  the  site  of 
the  Springfield  home  of  George  Bancroft  was  indicated.  Here 
the  historian  lived  from  two  to  three  years,  moving  over  from 
Northampton  in  1835.  During  this  period  he  was  engaged  upon 
his  history,  and  took  part  in  politics  on  the  Democratic  side. 


We  left  for  Northampton  by  a  mid-afternoon  train.  It  was 
a  little  journey  and  a  pleasant  one,  occupying  about  half  an 
hour.  At  Chicopee  Junction  allusion  was  made  to  the  home  of 
Edward  Bellamy  (born  in  Chicopee  Falls,  1850  —  died  there, 
1898),  in  the  Chicopee  Falls  section  of  the  city  of  Chicopee. 
Here  Bellamy  wrote  his  Utopian  "  Looking  Backward :  2000- 
1887,"  which  carried  his  name  round  the  world.  Percy  sug- 
gested a  side-visit  to  this  landmark,  but  I  contented  him  with 
a  photograph  of  it  which  I  produced  from  my  black  bag.  The 
house,  I  told  him,  was  pleasantly  situated  on  Church  Street, 
one  of  the  principal  streets  of  Chicopee  Falls.  It  had  been  the 
home  of  Bellamy's  father  before  him,  a  Baptist  clergyman  long 
settled  in  the  village. 

Then  we  talked  of  Bellamy's  personality  and  his  work. 
"  He  was  of  clerical  lineage  on  both  sides,"  I  remarked. 
"  Among  his  paternal  ancestors  was  Dr.  Joseph  Bellamy  (born 
1719  —  died  1790),  a  native  of  Connecticut,  minister  for  fifty 
years  of  the  church  in  Bethlehem,  that  state,  and  author  of 
several  weighty  theological  works.  His  maternal  grandfather 
was  a  minister  settled  many  years  in  Springfield,  —  the  Rev. 
Benjamin  Putnam.  The  religious  trait  which  he  thus  inherited 
marked  his  social  views  with  a  strongly  anti-materialistic  and 
spiritual  cast,  as  his  friend  Sylvester  Baxter  notes  in  his  tribute 


430 


L I TERA  R  Y  PIL  GRIM  A  GES. 


to  him,  which  prefaces  the  memorial  edition  of  <  Looking  Back- 
ward.' This  cast  appeared  more  conspicuously  in  his  later 
work.  His  earlier  productions  consisted  of  romances  and 
stories,  written  apparently  in  the  vein  of  the  author  aiming 
rather  to  entertain  than  to  reform  the  world. 

"'  Looking  Backward/  too, 'was  at  first  received  as  only  the 
clever  fancy  of  a  clever  writer.  But  when  its  scheme  was  once 
comprehended,  and  it  was  understood  that,  instead  of  a  fanciful 
romance  merely,  it  was,  to  quote  Bellamy's  own  words,  *  In- 


HOME    OF    EDWARD    BELLAMY. 

tended  in  all  seriousness  as  a  forecast,  in  accordance  with  the 
principles  of  evolution,  of  the  next  stage  in  the  industrial  and 
social  development  of  humanity,  especially  in  this  country,'  it 
became  the  most  popular  book  of  its  kind,  bounding  into  a  great 
circulation  in  a  short  time.  Within  ten  years  of  its  first  ap- 
pearance, in  1888,  nearly  a  million  copies  had  been  sold  in  this 
country  and  in  England,  while  translations  had  been  brought 
out  in  French,  German,  Italian,  Russian,  Arabic,  Bulgarian,  and 
other  languages  and  dialects.  Through  this  book  Bellamy  be- 
came the  recognized  spokesman  of  '  nationalism.'  His  theories 


72V    THE   CONNECTICUT   VALLEY. 


431 


were  further  advanced  through  The  New  Nation,  a  weekly 
journal  which  he  started  in  Boston,  and  conducted  for  a  few 
years,  and  in  his  last  work,  (  Equality/  Of  his  other  books, 
1  Miss  Ludington's  Secret :  a  Romance  of  Immortality/  brought 
out  before  <  Looking  Backward,'  and  '  Dr.  Heidenhoff's  Process/ 
had  the  largest  popularity.  Howells,  in  his  prefatory  notes  to 
the  posthumous  volume  of  Bellamy's  shorter  stories,  ( The 
Blindman's  World/  con- 
cludes that  'one  cannot 
acquaint  one's  self  with 
his  merely  artistic  work, 
and  not  be  sensible  that  in 
Edward  Bellamy  we  were 
rich  in  a  romantic  imagi- 
nation surpassed  only  by 
that  of  Hawthorne.'  The 
1  Duke  of  Stockbridge/  a 
romance  of  Shay's  Rebel- 
lion  of  1786,  his  later  pos- 
thumous volume,  published 
in  1900,  displays  the  same 
touch  that  is  observed  in 
the  book  of  stories.  It  is, 
moreover,  as  an  historical 
novel,  exceptional  in  that 
it  follows  the  real  facts 
of  history.  These  were  ascertained  through  careful  research 
among  the  documents  bearing  on  the  episode,  and  family  tradi- 
tions of  western  Massachusetts,  —  the  Berkshire  hills  country 
toward  which  we  are  bound,  —  the  scene  of  the  farmers' 
<  rebellion.'  This  romance  was  written  before  <  Looking  'Back- 
ward,' and  published  as  a  serial  in  a  local  newspaper,  but 
Bellamy  withheld  it  temporarily  from  book-form  while  l  Look- 
ing Backward'  was  performing  its  mission.  Shortly  before 
his  death  he  had  determined  to  bring  it  out. 


EDWARD    BELLAMY. 


482  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

"  Bellamy  was  trained  for  the  law,  and  was  admitted  to  the 
bar ;  but  he  never  practiced.  He  chose  instead  literature  for  a 
vocation,  with  journalism  as  a  way  to  it.  He  was  educated  in 
Union  College,  Schenectady,  New  York,  and  abroad,  in  Ger- 
many. Never  robust,  he  died  of  consumption,  after  a  season  in 
Colorado  vainly  seeking  cure  of  his  malady.  He  was  a  gentle, 
lovable  reformer,  shrinking  from  notoriety  or  blatant  leader- 
ship." 

In  the  "  Meadow  City,"  as  Northampton  has  picturesquely 
been  called,  the  landmarks  we  had  come  to  visit  were  all  within 


- 


THE  OLD  JONATHAN  EDWARDS  HOUSE,  NORTHAMPTON. 

the  compass  of  easy  and  charming  walks.  The  little  tree- 
embowered  city  itself,  set  upon  the  hill  slopes  and  bluffs  above 
the  river,  called  forth  expressions  of  admiration  f rdm  Percy ; 
and  he  declared  that  these  authors  selected  well,  when  I  ob- 
served that  Henry  Ward  Beecher  took  it  for  "  Norwood,"  the 
scene  of  his  New  England  story,  and  Holland  chose  it  for  the 
opening  scene  of  his  "  Kathrina  "  :  — 

"  Queen  village  of  the  meads 
Fronting  the  sunrise  and  in  beauty  throned, 
With  jeweled  homes  around  her  lifted  brow 
And  coronal  of  ancient  trees  : 
Northampton  sits,  and  rules  her  pleasant  realm." 


IN   THE   CONNECTICUT   VALLEY.  433 

First  of  all  we  visited  the  landmarks  of  Jonathan  Edwards 
(born  in  East  Windsor,  Conn.,  1703  —  died  in  Princeton,  N.  J., 
1758),  the  great  eighteenth  century  metaphysician,  who  has 
been  called  "  the  last  and  finest  product  of  the  old  Puritanism 
of  America."  On  old  King  Street,  but  a  short  distance  from 
the  station,  we  saw  the  site  of  his  home,  under  the  shadow  of 
the  venerable  survivor  of  the  two  elms  which  tradition  says  he 
planted.  Then,  entering  the  First  Congregational  Church, 
nearby  on  Main  Street,  the  successor  of  the  meeting-house  in 
which  he  preached,  his  figure  in  relief  on  a  bronze  tablet 
framed  in  oak  was  seen,  with  this  inscription: 

"In  memory  of 
Jonathan  Edwards 
minister  of  Northampton 
From  Feb.  15,  1727  to  June  22,  1750. 
The  law  of  truth  was  in  his  mouth  and 
unrighteousness  was  not  found  in  his  lips. 
He  walked  with  me  in  peace  and  uprightness 
And  did  turn  many  away  from  iniquity." 

This  memorial  was  placed  only  two  years  ago  (in  June,  1900) 
on  the  one  hundred  and  fiftieth  anniversary  of  Edwards's 
dismissal  from  the  Northampton  church.  Its  erection  was 
intended,  we  were  told,  not  as  a  reflection  upon  that  act,  but 
as  a  tribute  to  the  intellectual  powers  and  the  far-reaching 
moral  influence  of  Edwards. 

"  He  that  would  know  the  workings  of  the  New  England 
mind  in  the  middle  of  the  [eighteenth]  century  and  the  throb- 
bings  of  its  heart,  must  give  his  days  and  nights  to  the  study 
of  Jonathan  Edwards,"  I  quoted  from  Bancroft  as  we  contem- 
plated the  fine,  expressive  face  of  the  figure.  Percy  said  with 
a  smile  that  he  couldn't  give  quite  so  much  time  as  that  to  this 
one  study,  but  he  would  endeavor  to  comprehend  its  significance 
if  he  could  have  an  ^outline  of  Edwards's  story.  In  furnishing 
this  I  could  do  no  better  than  to  paraphrase  Oliver  Wendell 


434 


LITER  A  R  Y  PIL  GRIM  A  GES. 


Holmes's  sketch  of  the  divine,  with  some  added  notes  of  more 
detailed  biography,  in  effect  as  follows. 

"  He  came  of  a  line  of  ministers,  and  his  ancestors  had  <  fed 
on  sermons  so  long  that  he  must  have  been  born  with  scriptural 
texts  lying  latent  in  his  embryonic  thinking-marropr  like  the 
undeveloped  picture  in  a  film  of  collodion/  His  father,  the 

Rev.  Timothy  Edwards, 
was  minister  of  East 
Windsor,  Connecticut, 
for  sixty-four  years,  and 
noted  as  a  scholar.  His 
maternal  grandfather,  the 
Eev.  Solomon  Stoddard, 
was  his  predecessor  in 
the  Northampton  church, 
and  was  also  a  scholar  of 
standing.  He  was  bred 
in  the  Connecticut  min- 
ister's home,  in  a  town 
where  religious  revivals 
were  of  remarkable  fre- 
quency. During  one  of 
these,  when  he  was  a  boy 
of  seven  or  eight,  he 
built  a  booth  in  a  retired 
spot  outdoors,  for  secret 
prayer  with  some  of  his 
little  schoolmates.  His 
mother,  described  as  a 
woman  of  superior  force 
of  understanding  and  refinement,  chiefly  found  him  in  brains. 

"  At  six  he  was  studying  Latin  with  his  father.  At  thirteen 
he  was  a  student  at  Yale  College.  He  graduated  with  the  high- 
est honors,  receiving  almost  the  sole  and  accumulated  honors 
awarded  to  his  class.  He  remained  at  the  college  two  years 


MEMORIAL  TABLET  TO  JONATHAN   EDWARDS. 


IN   THE   CONNECTICUT   VALLEY.  435 

longer  to  study  theology.  In  his  nineteenth  year  he  began  to 
preach.  Before  he  was  twenty  he  compiled  a  series  of  seventy 
resolutions  as  the  guiding  principles  of  his  life,  and  it  was  his 
custom  ever  after  to  read. these  over  once  a  day.  Among  them 
were  resolves  '  to  live  with  all  my  might  while  I  do  live ' ;  <  in 
narrations  never  to  speak  anything  but  the  pure  and  simple 
verity ' ;  '  that  I  will  act  so,  in  every  respect,  as  I  think  I  shall 
wish  I  had  done,  if  I  should  at  last  be  damned.'  After  a  brief 
period  of  preaching,  first  in  New  York,  he  returned  to  Yale 
and  spent  two  years  more  there  as  tutor.  Then  his  Northamp- 
ton ministry  began,  as  colleague  of  his  then  venerable  grand- 
father. Upon  Mr.  Stoddard's  death  in  1729,  he  became  sole 
pastor. 

"  He  was  a  constant  student  and  a  prodigious  reader.  It 
was  his  habit  to  read  with  pen  in  hand,  to  think  and  write  as 
he  read.  It  was  not  unusual  for  him  to  devote  nearly  two- 
thirds  of  the  day  to  study.  His  favorite  exercise  was  horse- 
back riding.  He  always  carried  pen  and  paper  with  him,  and 
often  dismounted  to  write  down  the  thoughts  which  came  to 
him.  He  was  by  nature  a  poet  and  a  philosopher.  In  his 
youthful  <  meditations '  was  this  passage  :  — 

"  '  The  soul  of  a  true  Christian  appeared  like  such  a  little  white  flower 
as  we  see  in  the  spring  of  the  year  ;  low  and  humble  on  the  ground,  open- 
ing its  bosom  to  receive  the  pleasant  beams  of  the  sun's  glory  ;  rejoicing, 
as  it  were,  in  a  calm  rapture,  diffusing  around  a  sweet  fragrancy  ;  stand- 
ing peacefully  and  lovingly,  in  the  midst  of  other  flowers  round  about ;  all 
in  like  manner  opening  their  bosoms,  to  drink  in  the  light  of  the  sun.' 

"  But  the  most  exquisite  thing  from  his  pen  was  his  descrip- 
tion, when  a  youth  of  twenty,  of  the  maid  of  thirteen  who 
afterward  became  his  wife,  reminding  the  reader  of  Dante's 

when  he  first  saw  Beatrice  :  — 

\ 

"  '  They  say  there  is  a  young  lady  in  New  Haven  who  is  beloved  of 
that  Great  Being  who  made  and  rules  the  world,  and  that  there  are  certain 
seasons  in  which  this  Great  Being,  in  some  way  or  other  invisible,,  comes 


436  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

to  her  and  fills  her  mind  with  exceeding  sweet  delight,  and  that  she  hardly 
cares  for  anything,  except  to  meditate  on  him  —  that  she  expects,  after  a 
while,  to  be  received  up  where  he  is,  to  be  raised  up  out  of  the  world,  and 
caught  up  into  heaven  ;  being  assured  that  he  loves  her  too  well  to  let  her 
remain  at  a  distance  from  him  always.  There  she  is  to  dwell  with  him 
and  to'  be  ravished  with  his  love  and  delight  forever.  Therefore,  if  you 
present  all  the  world  before  her,  with  the  richest  of  its  treasures,  she  dis- 
regards it  and  cares  not  for  it,  and  is  unmindful  of  any  pain  or  affliction. 
She  has  a  strange  sweetness  in  her  mind,  and  singular  purity  in  her  affec- 
tions ;  is  most  just  and  conscientious  in  all  her  conduct ;  and  you  could 
not  persuade  her  to  do  anything  wrong  or  sinful,  if  you  would  give  her  all 
the  world,  lest  she  should  offend  this  Great  Being.  She  is  of  a  wonderful 
sweetness,  calmness,  and  universal  benevolence  of  mind  ;  especially  after 
this  Great  God  has  manifested  himself  to  her  mind.  She  will  sometimes 
go  about  from  place  to  place,  singing  sweetly,  and  seems  to  be  always  full 
of  joy  and  pleasure,  and  no  one  knows  for  what.  She  loves  to  be  alone, 
walking  in  the  fields  and  groves,  and  seems  to  have  someone  invisible 
always  conversing  with  her.' 

"  She  was  Sarah  Pierrepont,  daughter  of  a  clergyman,  one 
of  the  founders  of  Yale  College.  They  were  married  in  Ed- 
wards's  first  summer  at  Northampton,  when  she  was  eighteen, 
and  it  proved  an  ideal  union. 

"Two  great  revivals  happened  during  Edwards's  ministry 
here,  one  in  1735,  the  other  in  1740,  of  both  of  which  he  pub- 
lished accounts,  written  probably  in  his  house  on  King  Street. 
One  of  them,  entitled,  '  A  Narrative  of  Surprising  Conversions/ 
was  reprinted  in  England  with  a  preface  by  Dr.  Watts.  His 
preaching  was  largely  devoted  to  an  awakening  of  religious 
zeal  and  the  highest  standard  of  morals.  His  '  faith  in  the  lit- 
eral inspiration  of  the  Old  and  the  New  Testaments  was  im- 
plicit; it  was  built  on  texts  as  Venice  and  Amsterdam  are 
built  on  piles.  He  was  surrounded  with  believers  like  himself 
who  held  the  doctrines  of  Calvinism  in  all  their  rigor.  But  on 
the  other  hand,  he  saw  the  strongholds  of  his  position  threat- 
ened by  the  gradual  approach  or  the  actual  invasion  of  laxer 
teachings  and  practices,  so  that  he  found  himself,  as  he 
thought,  forced  into  active  hostilities,  and  soon  learned  his 


IN   THE   CONNECTICUT   VALLEY. 


437 


strength  as  a  combatant,  and  felt  the  stern  delight  of  the  war- 
rior as  champion  of  the  church  militant/ 

"  The  catastrophe  at  length  came,  impelled  by  his  efforts  to 
discipline  the  young  people  of  his  flock,  among  whom  evil 
ways  had  crept, 
and  by  the  excite- 
ment occasioned 
by  prominent 
families  from 
fear  of  exposure. 
It  culminated 
finally  over  the 
question  of  the 
admission  of 
unconverted  per- 
sons to  the  com- 
munion table, 
against  which  he 
declared  himself, 
reversing  the 
practice  main- 
tained by  his 
predecessor. 
There  was  much 
controversial  cor- 
res  pondence ; 
public  meetings 
were  held  by  the 
townspeople ;  an 

ecclesiastical  council  deliberated  on  the  issue  and  pronounced 
the  minister's  dismissal ;  and  the  church  ratified  it  by  an  over- 
whelming vote. 

"  Thus  cast  out  after  a  service  of  twenty -four  years,  Jona- 
than Edwards  went  to  Stockbridge,  where  he  was  minister  of 
that  town,  and  a  missionary  to  the  Indians  for  six  years. 


THE    EDWARDS    ELM. 


438 


LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 


FACSIMILE    OF   JONATHAN    EDWARDS'S    WILL. 

While  living  in  Stockbridge  he  wrote  his  famous  l  Essay  on  the 
Freedom  of  the  Will,'  published  in  1754,  through  which  came 
his  widest  reputation  with  metaphysicians.  On  the  death  of 
President  Aaron  Burr  of  Princeton  College,  his  son-in-law  and 


IN  THE   CONNECTICUT   VALLEY  439 

father  of  Aaron  Burr,  he  was  chosen  to  succeed  him.  He  was 
installed  in  January,  1758,  and  only  a  few  months  later  he 
died  from  a  fever  following  inoculation  for  the  smallpox,  then 
prevailing  in  the  college  town.  Shortly  before  his  father  had 
died  at  the  age  of  eighty-nine.  A  fortnight  after  his  own 
death  his  daughter,  the  widow  of  President  Burr,  died;  and 
about  six  months  later  his  widow  followed  him  to  the  grave. 

u  Dr.  Holmes  reminds  us  that  of  all  the  scholars  and  philos- 
ophers that  America  produced  before  the  beginning  of  the  nine- 
teenth century,  only  Benjamin  Franklin  and  Jonathan  Edwards 
established  a  considerable  and  permanent  reputation  in  the 
world  of  European  thought. 

"  Jonathan  and  Sarah  Pierrepont  Edwards  reared  a  family 
of  ten  children.  One  son,  Pierrepont,  became  Judge  of  the 
United  States  Circuit  Court  for  Connecticut,  and  his  son  be- 
came a  governor  of  the  state.  Another  of  their  sons,  Jonathan 
Edwards  2d,  was  the  second  president  of  Union  College,  Sche- 
nectady,  New  York.  One  of  their  daughters,  as  we  have  seen, 
was  the  wife  of  a  college  president.  Another  was  the  mother 
of  one,  —  Timothy  Dwight  (born  in  Northampton,  1752  —  died 
in  New  Haven,  1817),  eighth  president  of  Yale  College,  1797- 
1817.  Timothy  Dwight's  father  was  a  graduate  of  Yale,  and 
afterward  a  merchant  in  this  town.  From  his  mother  he  re- 
ceived his  early  education  at  home.  Like  his  grandfather  Ed- 
wards, he  entered  Yale  at  thirteen,  and  a  few  years  after  his 
graduation  became  a  tutor  there.  While  a  tutor  he  began  his 
long  poem  of  the  i  Conquest  of  Canaan,'  published  after  the 
Revolution,  over  which  the  critics  made  merry  because  of  its 
'epic  failures.7  His  more  famous  Revolutionary  song  of 
*  Columbia/  with  its  opening  lines  — 

"'Columbia,  Columbia,  to  glory  arise, 

The  queen  of  the  world,  and  child  of  the  skies  ! '  — 

was  written  when  he  was  a  chaplain  in  the  army. 

"  Timothy  Dwight  was  an  uncle  of  Theodore  Dwight  Wool- 


440 


LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 


sey  (born  in  New  York,  1801  —  died  in  New  Haven,  Conn., 
1881),  tenth  president  of  Yale,  1846-1871,  the  latter's  mother 
being  President  Dwight's  sister.  His  son,  Sereno  Edwards 
Dwight  (born  in  Greenfield  Hill,  Conn.,  1786  — died  in  Phila- 
delphia, Penn.,  1850),  the  editor  of  Jonathan  Edwards's  works 
and  his  first  biographer,  was  president  of  Hamilton  College, 
Clinton,  New  York,  1833-1835.  Timothy  Dwight's  brother, 

Theodore  Dwight 
(born  1765  —  died 
1846),  also  a  native 
of  this  town,  was  an 
essayist,  political 
writer,  and  editor  ; 
and  his  son,  Theodore 
Dwight,  was  the  his- 
torian of  Connecti- 
cut." 

In  the  Forbes  Li- 
brary, where  we  next 
called,  we  saw  an  in- 
teresting manuscript 
letter  of  Jonathan 
Edwards's,  written  in 
1740  to  the  Eev. 
Eleazer  Wheelock, 
founder  of  Dartmouth 
College,  but  at  that 
time  minister  of 

Lebanon,  Connecticut.  It  refers  to  an  approaching  visit  to 
Northampton  of  George  Whitefield,  the  English  revivalist. 

The  beautiful  grounds  of  Smith  College  (dating  from  1871) 
being  close  at  hand,  we  strolled  over  the  shaded  paths,  and  by 
the  building  and  "  cottages  "  which  constitute  this  fine  institu- 
tion established  through  the  noble  liberality  of  a  single  woman, 
—  Miss  Sophia  Smith  of  the  neighboring  town  of  Hatfield,  who 


SOPHIA    SMITH,     FOUNDER    OF    SMITH    COLLEGE. 


IN   THE   CONNECTICUT   VALLEY.  441 

gave  the  bulk  of  her  large  fortune  for  its  foundation.  Then 
we  bent  our  steps  up  Round  Hill,  where  Bancroft  and  Cogs- 
well had  their  ideal  Bound  Hill  School  for  boys  three-quar- 
ters of  a  century  ago.  They  were  well-favored  boys  who 
found  instruction  here,  mixed  judiciously  with  recreation,  —  a 
novel  feature  then,  for  the  Round  Hill  School  was  one  of  the 
earliest  to  include  wholesome  training  of  the  body  with  the 
culture  of  the  mind.  The  school  was  modeled  after  foreign 
boys'  schools,  particularly  German,  which  the  two  literary 
principals  had  observed  during  their  travels  abroad;  and  it 
aimed,  above  all,  to  make  true  gentlemen.  It  continued  for 
nearly  ten  years,  1823-1832.  Although  successful  for  the 
first  half  of  its  existence,  it  ended  with  a  loss  to  its  projectors. 
In  the  roll  of  Round  Hill  pupils  were,  a  number  of  boys  whose 
names  in  after  years  became  known  in  the  world.  They  came 
from  all  parts  of  the  country,  many  from  the  Southern  States  ; 
and  others  were  from  Mexico,  Brazil,  and  the  West  Indies. 
Like  the  boys  of  the  famous  English  schools,  they  wore  a  uni- 
form costume ;  and  Percy  imagined  their  appearance  as  they 
gamboled  over  the  hill  or  strolled  about  the  village,  each  clad 
in  '  roundabout '  and  trousers  of  blue-gray  broadcloth  with 
bright  buttons,  and  waistcoat  of  light  blue  kerseymere ;  or  in 
the  summer  uniform  of  blue  nankeen,  or  the  holiday  suit  of 
blue  silk  or  bombazine  roundabout  or  coat,  white  jacket,  and 
trousers  of  drill  or  niarseilles. 

Reverting  to  Bancroft,  I  remarked,  "  He  withdrew  from  the 
school  two  years  before  the  end,  and  devoted  himself  more 
sedulously  to  the  writing  of  his  history.  He  was  enabled  to 
see  the  first  volume  published  in  1834,  while  Northampton  was 
still  his  home.  The  year  after  his  removal  to  Springfield  he 
was  a  candidate  for  Congress,  but  was  defeated  at  the  polls. 
Two  years  later  he'  removed  to  Boston,  when  Van  Buren 
appointed  him  collector  of  that  port.  It  was  under  him  that 
Hawthorne  held  his  place  as  weigher  and  ganger  in  the  Boston 
Custom  House.  Both  went  out  with  the  incoming  of  the 


442 


LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 


A    GLIMPSE    OF    SMITH    COLLEGE. 


IN  THE   CONNECTICUT   VALLEY.  443 

Whigs  in  1841.  Bancroft,  however,  continued  his  political 
activity,  and  was  returned  to  office  with  the  opening  of  Folk's 
administration  in  1845,  meanwhile  having  stood  the  year  be- 
fore as  the  candidate  of  the  Democratic  minority  in  Massachu- 
setts for  governor.  He  was  in  Folk's  cabinet  as  secretary  of 
the  navy  till  the  autumn  of  1846,  when  he  was  appointed  min- 
ister to  England,  in  which  position  he  remained  through  Folk's 
administration.  While  in  this  service  he  prosecuted  his  his- 
torical researches  in  the  government  archives  in  London  and 
Paris.  Upon  his  return  to  this  country  he  took  up  his  resi- 
dence in  New  York  City,  spending  the  summers  and  autumns 
at  his  country  seat  in  Newport,  where,  as  the  years  went  on, 
his  beautiful  garden  of  roses  developed.  During  the  latter 
part  of  his  long  life  his  winter  home  was  in  Washington." 

Our  day  now  closing,  we  sought  our  hotel,  and  after  a  late 
supper  and  a  quiet  evening  we  retired,  reserving  for  the  next 
morning  a  stroll  to  the  neighborhood  of  the  home  of  George 
W.  Cable  (born  in  New  Orleans,  La.,  1844  — ),  with  which  this 
pilgrimage  was  to  finish. 


The  morning's  walk  to  "  Tarryawhile,"  as  Cable  hospitably 
calls  his  pleasant  seat,  was  made  before  the  sun  had  scarcely 
more  than  risen.  It  took  us  toward  "Paradise,"  a  region  of 
woods  and  river  winding  for  a  mile  from  town  to  country,  so 
named  by  Jenny  Lind,  who  was  moved  by  its  beauty  as  she 
saw  it  when  visiting  Northampton  years  ago.  The  way  lay 
down  "Paradise  Koad,"  through  "the  Glen,"  and  along  "Dryad's 
Green,"  on  the  bluffs  above  Mile  Kiver. 

"  Tarryawhile  "  we  found  to  be  one  of  a  succession  of  homes 
on  the  nearly  level  surface  of  the  bluffs,  "  whose  well-ordered 
lawns  merge  by  pleasant  gradations  into  the  freer  graces  of 
the  woods."  The  house  in  design  and  arrangement  pleased 
Percy's  eye.  The  broad  entrance  porch  opens  upon  a  hall  of 
stately  proportions,  with  tall  pillars  giving  to  it  a  Southern 


444  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

air,  and  furnishings  in  bright  hues.  The  library,  the  parlor, 
and  the  dining-room  wear  the  same  cheerful  aspect.  From  the 
dining-room  one  may  step  out  through  the  low  French  windows 
upon  the  beautiful  grounds,  stretching  back  to  the  bluff  which 
slants  abruptly  to  the  river.  Here  are  giant  pines,  fine  oaks 
and  elms,  shrubs  and  flowers.  Several  of  the  younger  trees 
were  planted  at  various  times  by  Mr.  Cable's  literary  visitors, 
and  each  tree,  we  were  told,  is  called  by  its  planter's  name. 
In  the  thick  of  a  grove  is  the  "  den,"  Mr.  Cable's  retired  study, 

a  little  house  of  rough 
stone  and  shingles,  and 
attractively  fashioned  in- 
terior, with  broad  fireplace, 
deep  window-seats,  and  the 
writing-table  so  placed  as 
to  receive  the  best  light. 

Percy  was  interested  to 
know  which  of  Cable's 
novels  were  written  at 
"  Tarryawhile."  All  pub- 
lished during  the  past  fif- 
teen years  were  sent  out 
from  Northampton,  he  was 
told.  Cable  established  his 
home  here  in  1886.  From 

GEORGE    W.  CABLE.  .   .  A,  .  ^T 

his  mother,  who  was  a  New- 

Englander,  he  inherited  a  love  for  the  Northern  country,  while 
through  his  father,  a  Southerner,  he  is  devotedly  attached  to 
the  South.  Although  he  has  planted  himself  so  firmly  in  the 
North,  fixing  his  home  for  the  remainder  of  his  life  here,  he  is 
quite  as  much  a  Southerner  to-day  as  he  ever  has  been,  "  feel- 
ing with  the  South  in  most  things,  especially  things  artistic," 
he  has  been  quoted  as  saying.  "  His  place  in  our  literature," 
I  ventured,  "  is  as  the  master  writer  of  the  purely  Creole  story. 
"  His  reputation  came  instantaneously  with  his  first  ^novel, 


Itf  THE   CONNECTICUT  VALLEY.  445 

1  Old  Creole  Days.'  When  that  was  running  as  a  serial  in 
Scribner's  Monthly  —  Dr.  Holland's  Srribner's  —  in  1879,  his 
name  was  unknown  in  literature.  He  was  then  a  clerk  in  a 
cotton  house  in  New  Orleans,  and  had  written  his  story  at 
odd  moments  in  his  leisure  hours.  He  had  been  a  New 
Orleans  newspaper  reporter  for  a  few  months ;  before  that,  a 
civil  engineer,  self-taught;  earlier,  a  clerk  in  a  mercantile 
house,  having  begun  work  at  fourteen,  when  his  father  died 
leaving  the  family  in  narrow  circumstances.  He  had  served 
in  the  Confederate  army  as  a  private  in  a  Mississippi  cavalry 
company,  during  the  Civil  War.  He  got  his  education  in 
New  Orleans  schools,  and  through  studies  which  he  pursued 
after  he  had  begun  to  work.  In  camp,  when  a  soldier,  he 
studied  Latin  and  mathematics.  While  a  clerk  he  read 
English  literature,  composed  somewhat,  and  studied  various 
subjects. 

"  The  success  of  '  Old  Creole  Days '  determined  him  to 
abandon  trade  and  take  up  writing  as  a  profession.  l  The 
Grandissimes '  appeared  soon  after  *  Old  Creole  Days '  ;  then 
followed  those  masterpieces  '  Madame  Delphine,'  <  Dr.  Sevier,' 
and  the  rest.  His  '  History  of  New  Orleans '  and  <  The 
Silent  South '  are  among  his  few  works  outside  the  class  of 
fiction.  In  his  '  John  March,  Southerner '  one  or  two  of  the 
scenes  are  set  in  the  neighborhood  of  <  Tarry  awhile.'  He  pro- 
duces slowly  and  carefully,  letting  only  his  most  finished 
work  pass  from  his  hands  to  the  printer.  He  writes  always 
in  the  forenoon  hours." 


Keturned  from  "  Paradise,"  and  again  at  the  railway  station, 
we  took  train  connecting  with  an  early  "  express "  on  the 
Boston  and  Albany  for  Pittsfield. 


XXI. 

AMONG  THE    BERKSHIRE   HILLS. 

Pittsfield.  —  Birthplace  of  William  Allen,  maker  of  the  first  American 
biographical  dictionary.  — The  former  Gold  mansion,  scene  of  "  The 
Old  Clock  on  the  Stairs." — Holmes's  ancestral  country  seat. — 
Scenes  of  u  Elsie  Venner." —  "  The  Plowman." — The  original 
"One  Hoss  Shay."  —  "  Broadhall."  —  The  two  Majors  Melville.— 
Herman  Melville  and  Hawthorne.  --  Melville's  sea  stories.  - 
Lenox.  —Catherine  M.  Sedgwick's  stories.  —  Mrs.  Charles  Sedg- 
wick's  school  and  some  of  her  pupils.  —  Maria  Cuminings,  author  of 
"The  Lamplighter."  — Frances  Anne  Kemble.  —  Hawthorne  in 
the  "little  red  cottage." — Stockbridge.  —  "Edwards  Hall." — 
Jonathan  Edwards' s  life  here.  —  The  Sedgwick  mansion  and  the 
Sedgwick  family.  —  The  famous  brothers  Field.  —  Birthplace  of 
Mark  Hopkins.  —  Great  Barrington.  —  Scenes  of  Bryant's  favorite 
poems.  —  The  poet's  earlier  life  in  Cummington.  —  A  glance-  at 
Sheffield. 

IN  Pittsfield  we  were  in  the  heart  of  the  Berkshires  and  of 
the  region  of  their  chief  literary  landmarks.  Most  of  these,  I 
remarked  as  we  stepped  from  the  train,  are  to  be  found  in  this 
beautiful  hill  city  and  within  an  afternoon  or  a  day's  ride  from 
it  over  country  roads.  The  route  that  we  should  follow  would 
embrace  Pittsfield,  Lenox,  Stockbridge,  and  Great  Barrington. 

I  should  have  liked  to  include  in  our  itinerary  a  visit  to 
Cummington,  the  birthplace  of  William  Gullen  Bryant,  but 
this  would  necessitate  a  special  journey  to  a  single  point,  tak- 
ing us  quite  out  of  our  course.  The  little  town  lies,  indeed, 
as  Percy  saw  by  the  map  which  we  had  with  us,  outside  of 
Berkshire,  though  close  against  the  eastern  edge  of  the  hill 
country.  It  may  best  be  reached  from  Dalton,  the  station  on 
the  railroad  below  Pittsfield.  I  promised  to  recall  the  poet's 

446 


AMONG    THE  BERKSHIRE  HILL R. 


447 


448  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

boyhood  there  when  we  should  reach  the  Bryant  homestead 
in  Great  Barrington,  the  place  in  which  his  young  manhood 
was  spent,  and  in  and  about  which  he  found  the  inspiration 
and  the  themes  for  the  poems  which  are  counted  among  his 
best.  Meanwhile  I  produced  from  my  black  bag  a  photograph 
of  the  Cuminington  homestead,  showing  its  appearance  on  the 
occasion  of  the  celebration  of  the  poet's  centenary  in  the  sum- 
mer of  1894. 

Another  interesting  point  beyond  our  reach,  as  our  plans 
were  arranged,  was  the  town  of  Lanesborough,  north  of  Pitts- 
field,  whence  came  that  philosophical  humorist  known  as 
"  Josh  Billings,"  in  private  life  Henry  Wheeler  Shaw  (born 
1818  —  died  at  Monterey,  Cal.,  1885).  There  also  in  the  early 
eighties,  Horace  E.  Scudder  had  a  literary  workshop  with 
Arthur  Gilman,  another  author-editor  of  Cambridge,  in  a  little 
schoolhouse  near  Constitution  Hill,  and  there  he  wrote  the 
Bodley  Books. 

We  reached  Pittsfield  early  in  the  afternoon,  and  luncheon 
at  the  Maplewood  House  first  engaged  us.  That  finished,  we 
strolled  about  the  pleasant,  tree-lined  streets  of  the  neighbor- 
hood, visiting  the  nearest  points  of  literary  interest.  In  the 
Berkshire  Athenaeum  we  saw  the  desk  upon  which  Hawthorne 
wrote  "  The  House  of  the  Seven  Gables "  while  living  in  the 
"  little  red  cottage "  at  Lenox.  Near  by  the  Athenaeum  was 
pointed  out  the  birthplace  of  the  Kev.  William  Allen  (born 
1784  —  died  in  Northampton,  1868),  compiler  of  the  first 
biographical  dictionary  published  in  America,  and  president 
of  Bowdoin  College  (1819-1839)  when  Longfellow,  Haw- 
thorne, and  the  Abbott  brothers  were  students  there.  He  was 
the  assistant  librarian  of  Harvard  College  when  he  began  his 
dictionary  and  when  the  first  edition  was  published  in  1808: 
The  second  edition,  much  enlarged,  came  a  quarter  of  a  cen- 
tury after,  during  his  presidency  of  Bowdoin. 

Not  far  away  we  saw  the  house  which  was  the  scene  of 
Longfellow's  "The  Old  Clock  on  the  Stairs,"  still  standing 


AMONG    THE  BERKSHIRE  HILLS.  449 

"  somewhat  back  from  the  village  street,"  with  the  "  tall  pop- 
lar-trees "  throwing  their  shadows  over  it.  The  house  is  now 
the  "  Plunkett  mansion,"  and  within  the  ancient  clock  occupies 
its  old  station  half-way  up  the  hall  stairs.  At  the  time  of  the 
writing  of  the  poem  it  was  the  "  Gold  house,"  homestead  of 
Mrs.  Longfellow's  maternal  grandfather.  Thomas  Gold  was 
a  leading  lawyer  in  Pittsfield,  and  a  man  of  wide  influences. 
It  was  during  his  occupancy,  as  the  poem  relates,  that  — 

**  In  that  mansion,  used  to  be 
Free-hearted  Hospitality  ; 
His  great  fires  up  the  chimney  roared ; 
The  stranger  feasted  at  his  board  ; 
But,  like  the  skeleton  at  the  feast, 
That  warning  timepiece  never  ceased,  — 
'  Forever  —  never. 
Never  —  forever.1  " 

"  You  will  recall,"  I  reminded  Percy,  "  that  the  wedding 
journey  of  the  Longfellows  in  the  summer  of  1843,  to  which 
we  alluded  in  Springfield,  included  a  visit  to  Mrs.  Longfellow's 
relatives  here.  The  idea  of  the  poem  was  evidently  suggested 
to  the  poet  at  that  time ;  but  he  did  not  write  it  till  the  early 
winter  of  1845,  when  at  home  in  Cambridge.  In  his  diary 
appears  this  note,  under  date  of  Nov.  12,  that  year :  <  Began  a 
poem  on  a  clock  with  the  words  "  Forever,  never  "  as  the  bur- 
den ;  suggested  by  the  words  of  Bridaine,  the  old  French  mis- 
sionary, who  said  of  eternity  — "  C'est  une  pendule  dont  le 
balancier  dit  et  redit  sans  cesse  ces  deux  mots  seulement  dans  le 
silence  des  tombeaux,  —  Toujours,  jamais  f  Jamais,  toujours  ! 
Et  pendant  ces  effrayables  revolutions,  un  reprouve  s'ecrie, 
*  Quelle  heure  est-il  ?  '  et  la  voix  d'un  autre  miserable  lui  repond, 
'  L'Eternite:  "  ' " 

Returning  to  the  hotel  we  engaged  a  carriage  for  the  drive 
over  to  Lenox,  and  thence  to  Stockbridge.  To  Lenox  it  is  six 
miles  by  the  direct  road  ;  but  as  we  traveled,  with  occasional 
excursions  into  by-ways,  it  was  somewhat  longer. 


450  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

First  we  drove  to  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes's  ancestral  coun- 
try seat,  "  Canoe  Meadow,"  where,  and  in  the  neighboring 
South  Mountain,  were  laid  scenes  of  "  Elsie  Vernier."  We  had 
Dr.  Holmes's  own  account  of  its  history  in  this  extract  from  a 
letter  given  by  his  biographer,  Morse : 

"The  place  in  which  I  lived  during  seven  summers,  1849-1856,  was 
in  Pittsfield  on  the  road  leading  to  Lenox.  The  place  contained  two  hun- 
dred and  eighty  acres,  and  was  the  residue  of  a  section  six  miles  square 
bought  of  the  State  —  or  Province,  more  properly  —  by  my  great-grand- 
father, Jacob  Wendell.  The  Province  held  it  directly  from  the  Indians. 
All  of  the  present  town  of  Pittsfield,  except  one  thousand  acres,  was  the 
property  of  my  great-grandfather,  whose  deed  used  to  hang  in  the  entry 
of  my  house.  It  was  dated  in  1738." 

Dr.  Holmes  built  the  house  in  which  he  passed  those 
"  seven  blessed  summers,"  which  afterward  stood  in  his  mem- 
ory "  like  the  seven  golden  candlesticks  in  the  beatific  vision 
of  the  holy  dreamer."  The  trees  also  about  the  place  were 
almost  all  of  his  planting.  "  Look  at  them,"  he  wrote  a  friend 
who  had  fixed  his  summer  home  in  Pittsfield  years  after,  "  look 
at  them  as  you  pass  my  old  place,  and  see  how  much  better  I 
have  deserved  the  gratitude  of  posterity  than  the  imbecile  who 
only  accomplished  a  single  extra  blade  of  grass  !  "  In  "  Elsie 
Venner  "  he  wrote,  "  From  these  windows  at  Canoe  Meadow 
among  the  mountains  we  could  see  all  summer  long  a  lion  ram- 
pant, a  Shanghai  chicken,  and  General  Jackson  on  horseback, 
done  by  Nature  in  green  leaves,  each  with  a  single  tree."  This 
tree  was  the  "  glorious  Pine  "  still  standing  on  the  estate.  The 
old  place  long  ago  passed  into  other  hands,  but  its  features  are 
well  preserved,  while  it  retains  a  flavor  of  the  Autocrat  in  its 
present  name  of  "  Holmesdale."  During  his  first  summer  here 
Dr.  Holmes  wrote  and  read  his  poem  "  The  Plowman,"  for  the 
country  cattle  show.  The  following  season  he  wrote  the  poem 
for  the  dedication  of  the  Pittsfield  Cemetery,  in  which  is  pic- 
tured the  lovely  scenery  of  the  region : 


AMONG   THE  BERKSHIRE  HILLS.  451 

Spirit  of  Beauty  !  let  thy  graces  blend 
With  loveliest  Nature  all  that  Art  can  lend. 

Come  from  the  forest  where  the  beech's  screen 
Bars  the  fierce  noonbeam  with  its  flakes  of  green  ; 
Stay  the  rude  axe  that  bares  the  shadowy  plains, 
Stanch  the  deep  wound  that  dries  the  maple's  veins. 

Come  with  the  stream  whose  silver-braided  rills 
Fling  their  unclasping  bracelets  from  the  hills, 
Till  in  one  gleam,  beneath  the  forest's  wings, 
Melts  the  white  glitter  of  a  hundred  springs. 

Come  from  the  steeps  where  look  majestic  forth 
From  their  twin  thrones  the  Giants  of  the  North 
On  the  huge  shapes,  that,  crouching  at  their  knees, 
Stretch  their  broad  shoulders,  rough  with  shaggy  trees. 
Through  the  wide  waste  of  ether,  not  in  vain, 
Their  softened  gaze  shall  reach  our  distant  plain  ; 
There,  while  the  mourner  turns  his  aching  eyes 
On  the  blue  mounds  that  print  the  bluer  skies, 
Nature  shall  whisper  that  the  fading  view 
Of  -mightiest  grief  may  wear  a  heavenly  hue." 

The  stream  is  the  beautiful  Housatonic ;  the  Giants  of  the 
North  are  the  double  peaks  of  Gray  lock. 

Judge  Oliver  Wendell,  Dr.  Holmes's  grandfather,  was  a 
summer  resident  here  before  the  Doctor,  and  his  chaise  was  the 
original  of  "  The  Deacon's  Masterpiece." 

Some  distance  below  was  the  old  Melville  Farm  where 
Longfellow  spent  his  summer  vacation  in  1848,  and  thought 
out  "  Kavanagh."  Then,  as  he  pictured  the  place  in  his  diary, 
was  here  "  a  fine  old  house,  with  broad,  echoing  hall,  built  by  a 
Dutchman,  Henry  Van  Schaack  of  Kinderhook,  some  seventy 
or  eighty  years  ago ;  .  .  .  a  quaint  portico  in  front,  and  elms, 
and  sycamores ;  and  in  the  rear,  a  kind  of  stoop,  or  verandah, 
with  blinds,  for  smoking."  "  This  was  <  Broadhall,' "  I  ex- 
plained, "  formerly  the  Major  Melville  place.  The  Dutchman 
who  built  the  house,  in  1781,  was  a  loyalist,  and  came  to  Pitts- 
field  when  he  was  hurried  out  of  New  York,  in  Revolutionary 


452 


LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 


times.  The  Melville  who  gave  it  its  later  name,  was  Major 
Thomas  Melville,  Jr.,  a  son  of  Major  Melville  of  Boston,  the 
original  of  Holmes's  <  The  Last  Leaf.'  This  first  Major  Mel- 
ville had  been  one  of  the  <  Boston  Tea  Party/  and  was  a  soldier 
of  the  ^Revolution.  He  was  the  last  of  the  « cocked  hats '  in 
Boston ;  that  is,  the  last  to  adhere  to  the  old  fashion  of  small 
clothes,  shoe  buckles,  and  three-cornered  hat.  The  second 
Major  Melville  came  to  Pittsfield  during  the  War  of  1812, 
assigned  to  the  charge  of  the  commissary  department  of  the 
,  military  station  then  estab- 
lished here.  He  purchased 
Broadhall  shortly  after  the 
close  of  the  war,  and  settled 
down  to  a  peaceful  agricultural 
life.  Some  years  after  the 
Major's  day  Broadhall  became 
a  summer  boarding  place,  fa- 
vored mostly  by  literary  folk. 
Holmes  spent  one  season  here. 
Other  guests  included  Charles 
Sumner,  Catherine  M.  Sedg- 
wick,  and  Herman  Melville, 
nephew  of  the  second  and 
grandson  of  the  first  Major. 

"  The  later  home  of  Herman 
Melville  (born  in  New  York, 
1819 --died  there,  1891)  was  about  a  quarter  of  a  mile  south- 
west of  Broadhall.  It  was  given  the  name  of  '  Arrowhead ' 
from  the  numerous  Indian  relics  found  about  the  place.  The 
site  was  chosen  because  of  its  beauty,  commanding  a  fine  view 
of  Graylock  Peak  and  the  nearer  hills. 

"Melville  came  here  to  live,"  I  continued,  passing  to  his 
story,  "  in  1850,  when  his  fame  was  fresh,  '  Typee,'  his  first 
book,  still  being  widely  read,  and  '  White  Jacket,  or  the  World 
in  a  Man-of-War,'  just  out.  Arrowhead  remained  his  home  for 


HERMAN    MELVILLE. 


AMONG    THE  BERKSHIRE  HILLS.  453 

thirteen  years,  the  period  of  his  best  literary  work.  Here  he 
wrote  'Moby  Dick,  or  the  White  Whale/  < Pierre,'  'Israel  Pot- 
ter,' the  '  Piazza  Tales,'  written  on  his  piazza  looking  out  upon 
the  hills;  and' '  October  Mountain/  named  for  the  neighboring 
hill. 

"  He  became  Hawthorne's  most  intimate  friend  while  the 
romancer  was  at  Lenox.  To  him  is  given  the  credit  of  having 
first  discovered  to  the  world  the  quality  of  the  '  Mosses  from 
an  Old  Manse.'  Mrs.  H.  M.  Plunkett,  the  Pittsfield  author  of 
to-day  (the  biographer  of  Dr.  Holland,  from  whom  we  have 
quoted),  has  pleasantly  recalled  the  circumstance.  Melville 
read  the  book  for  the  first  time  the  year  that  Hawthorne  came 
to  Lenox,  when  it  had  been  out  four  years ;  and  thereupon, 
with  the  *  wild  witch-voice '  of  the  author  ringing  in  him,  he 
made  it  the  subject  of  a  fervid  philosophical  essay  for  the 
Literary  World  of  New  York,  then  the  most  authoritative 
literary  journal  of  the  country,  published  by  the  Duyckincks. 
Summing  up  with  a  commendation  of  Hawthorne  to  American 
readers  as  an  excellent  author  of  their  own  flesh  and  blood, 

*  an  uniinitating,  arid  perhaps  in  his  own  way  an  inimitable, 
man/  in  his  enthusiasm  he  wrote  :  — 

" '  The  smell  of  your  beeches  and  hemlocks  is  upon  him ;  yo*ur  own 
broad  prairies  are  in  his  soul.  Give  not  over  to  future  generations  the 
glad  duty  of  acknowledging  him  for  what  he  is ;  and  by  confessing  him 
you  brace  the  whole  brotherhood.  For  genius  all  over  the  world  stands 
hand  in  hand,  and  one  shock  of  recognition  runs  the  whole  circle  round. 
There  are  things  in  the  "  Twice  Told  Tales  "  and  "  The  Scarlet  Letter  " 
which  had  they  been  written  in  England  a  century  ago,  Hawthorne 
had  utterly  displaced  many  of  the  bright  names  we  now  revere  on 
authority.' 

The  publication  of  this  review  in  the  acknowledged  arbiter 
of  literary  claims  created  a  profound  sensation  among]  dis- 
criminating readers,  says  Mrs. 'Plunkett,  and  straightway  the 

*  Mosses ?  climbed  to  four  thousand. 

u  Melville,  like  Hawthorne,  was  resejved  and  shy.    Though 


454  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

drawn  to  each  other  from  their  first  introduction,  the  two  came 
together  intimately  only  .through  a  chance  close  association. 
As  J.  E.  A.  Smith,  '  the  poet  of  Pittsfield '  and  its  historian,  has 
related,  one  day  both  were  guests  at  a  picnic  excursion  origi- 
nated by  some  of  the  resident  literati.  A  thunderstorm  coming 
up,  they  were  compelled  to  take  shelter  in  a  recess  of  Monu- 
ment Mountain.  This  enforced  proximity  lasted  more  than 
two  hours,  and  their  intercourse,  which  grew  familiar  as  the 
time  wore  on,  did  the  work.  An  enduring  friendship  between 
them  was  thus  laid.  It  lasted  to  the  end  of  Hawthorne's  life  ; 
and  one  of  the  most  cherished  treasures  of  the  Melville  family 
are  several  first  editions  of  Hawthorne's  books  inscribed  to 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Melville  by  Hawthorne  and  his  wife." 

Reverting  to  Melville's  career,  I  remarked,  "Its  beginning 
was  romantic.  When  a  boy  the  tales  of  adventure  told  him  by 
his  father,  who  was  a  merchant  engaged  in  foreign  trade,  and 
by  a  sea-faring  uncle,  inspired  in  him  a  love  for  the  sailor's 
life ;  and  in  his  eighteenth  year  he  shipped  as  cabin-boy  on  a 
Liverpool  packet.  Upon  his  return  home  he  took  up  the  more 
prosaic  occupation  of  country  school  teaching.  But  the  sea- 
fever  was  still  on  him,  and  this  was  heightened  by  reading 
Dana's  'Two  Years  Before  the  Mast,'  when  that  fascinating 
book  first  came  out,  in  1840.  So  he  shipped  again,  this  time 
on  a  New  Bedford  whaler  bound  for  the  Pacific  whale-fishery. 

"After  a  cruise  of  sixteen  months  the  ship  put  in  to  the 
island  of  Noukahiva,  in  the  Marquesas  group  of  the  South 
Pacific.  Harsh  treatment  during  the  cruise  tempted  him  and 
a  shipmate,  '  Toby,'  to  escape ;  they  hid  in  a  forest,  and  the 
ship  sailed  off  without  them.  In  attempting  to  reach  the  set' 
tlement  of  a  peaceful  tribe  of  natives  they  lost  their  way,  and 
after  three  days  of  wandering  in  forest  and  over  mountain 
range,  they  found  themselves  in  the  hostile  Typee  valley.  For- 
tunately they  had  picked  up  "a  few  words  of  the  native  lan- 
guage, and  chancing  to  express  friendly  words,  they  were 
detained  in  <  indulgent  captivity.7  This  lasted  four  months, 


AMONG    THE   BERKSHIRE   HILLS.  455 

Melville  meanwhile  having  lost  sight  of  his  mate.  He  had 
begun  to  despair  of  ever  getting  back  to  civilization,  when  a 
Sidney  whaler  appeared ;  and,  after  a  brisk  fight  between  the 
natives  and  a  boat's  crew  which  had  come  ashore,  he  was  res- 
cued. Taking  a  sailor's  hand  on  this  whaler,  he  was  .next 
landed  at  Tahiti  of  the  Society  Islands,  on  the  very  day  that 
the  French  took  possession  of  these  islands.  He  tarried  there 
awhile  and  then  sailed  for  the  Hawaiian  group,  where  he 
remained  several  months,  studying  the  islands  and  the  people. 
In  the  autumn  of  1843  he  shipped  as  a  seaman  on  the  frigate 
United  States,  and  started  on  his  homeward  way.  A  stay  of 
some  time  was  made  by  the  frigate  at  one  of  the  Peruvian 
ports,  and  finally,  a  year  after  the  departure  from  the  Sand- 
wich Islands,  Boston  was  reached. 

"The  book  'Typee:  a  Peep  at  Polynesian  Life  during  a 
Four  Months'  Residence  in  a  Valley  of  the  Marquesas,'  was  a 
narrative  of  his  adventure.  It  was  told  with  such  spirit  and 
freshness  and  charm  of  style,  and  came  at  such  an  opportune 
time,  when  popular  interest  in  the  Pacific  islands  was  first 
awakening,  that  it  captivated  the  public.  It  was  written  dur- 
ing the  winter  following  his  return,  in  Lansingburg,  New  York, 
on  the  east  bank  of  the  Hudson,  his  boyhood  home,  where  he 
had  first  taught  school.  Published  simultaneously  in  New 
York  and  London,  and  receiving  warm  praise  from  both  Eng- 
lish and  American  critics,  it  established  Melville's  reputation 
instantly." 

"  Was  the  fate  of  his  shipmate  on  the  island  ever  known  ?  " 
"  Yes.  Curiously  enough,  Melville  met  him  in  New  York, 
on  Broadway,  when  <  Typee  '  was  just  out.  He  had  escaped 
from  the  island  in  a  no  less  dramatic  way  than  Melville,  after 
vain  efforts  to  rejoin  his  mate.  His  story  was  made  a  supple- 
mentary chapter  to  a  later  edition  of  '  Typee.' 

"  <  Omoo :  a  Narrative  of  Adventures  in  the  South  Seas,' 
giving  a  lively  account  of  the  experiences  at  Tahiti,  followed 
the  next  year.  Two  years  later  « Maidi,  and  a  Voyage  Thither,' 


456  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

a  philosophical  romance,  appeared ;  and  the  same  year  4  Ked- 
burn/  relating  the  '  sailor-boy  confessions  and  reminiscences  of 
the  son  of  a  gentleman  in  the  merchant  service.'  Then  fol- 
lowed <  White  Jacket,'  and  the  books  written  here  in  Pittsfield, 
of  which  'Moby  Dick'  has  been  called  the  most  dramatic  and 
imaginative  of  all  his  works.  In  his  later  writings  he  was 
much  given  to  speculative  philosophy,  and  his  popularity 
waned. 

"The  latter  years  of  Melville's  life  were  spent  in  New 
York,  where  he  had  a  place  in  the  Custom  House  which  for  a 
long  time  escaped  the  politicians.  His  retiring  habits  grew 
upon  him  as  he  advanced  in  years,  and  he  fought  shy  of  all 
publicity.  Notwithstanding  his  remarkable  adventures  and 
his  sea-faring  life,  there  was  nothing  of  the  jovial,  breezy  air 
of  the  sailor  about  him.  He  had  more  the  gentle  carriage  of 
the  student,  the  manner  of  the  man  of  books.  He  was  more 
than  Dana  a  pioneer  of  our  sea-story  writers,  and  in  his  best 
works  set  a  pace  not  easy  for  his  successors  to  follow.  His 
picturesque  style  came  through  his  excellent  training  in  Eng- 
lish composition,  to  which  he  showed  an  aptitude  in  his  youth, 
and  from  his  early  reading  of  the  masters  of  English  literature. 
Melville  married  a  daughter  of  Chief  Justice  Lemuel  Shaw  of 
the  Massachusetts  Supreme  Court>  the  year  following  the 
appearance  of  ''Typee,'  which  he  dedicated  to  the  chief 
justice." 

Now  in  Lenox,  we  sought  first  the  Lenox  home  of  the 
Sedgwicks,  —  the  author,  Catherine  Maria  Sedgwick  (born  in 
Stockbridge,  1739  — died  near  Boston,  1869),  her  brother 
Charles,  and  Mrs.  Charles.  This  home  was  a  choice  literary 
center  in  their  day,  bringing  celebrity  to  the  village  long  before 
it  became  renowned  as  a  place  of  fashionable  country  seats. 
Their  identification  with  Lenox,  we  were  told,  began  in  the 
twenties,  when  Charles  and  his  wife  moved  over  here  from 
the  Stockbridge  home,  Miss  Sedgwick  joining  them  in  the  early 
thirties.  Here  Miss  Sedgwick  wrote  her  later  stories,  "The 


AMONG    THE  BERKSHIRE  HILLS.  457 

Linwoods,"  "  The  Poor  Rich  Man  and  the  Rich  Poor  Man," 
"  Live  and  Let  Live,"  "  The  Morals  of  Manners,"  "  The  Boy 
of  Mt.  Rhigi,"  "Married  and  Single,"  —  those  homely  tales, 
mostly  of  rural  New  England  life,  with  the  scenes  often  set  in 
these  Berkshire  Hills,  which  had  a  great  vogue  sixty  and  more 
years  ago. 

"  Here  also,"  I  added,  "  was  Mrs.  Charles  Sedgwick's 
1  school  for  young  ladies,'  as  famous  in  its  way  as  the  '  Round 
Hill  School'  at  Northampton,  and  longer  lived,  continuing 
from  the  twenties  to  the  sixties.  Among  the  earlier  pupils 
were  Harriet  G.  Hosuier,  the  sculptor ;  Charlotte  Cushman, 
the  actress;  and  Maria  Cummins,  author  of  'The  Lamp- 
lighter,' a  simple  domestic  tale  published  in  1854,  which  won 
the  popular  heart  and  ran  through  successive  editions,  a  total 
of  seventy  thousand  copies,  in  less  than  a-  year.  Mrs.  Sedg- 
wick  wrote  much  for  children,  and  her  <  The  Beatitudes'  was 
especially  popular.  She  was  a  frequent  contributor  to  Lydia 
Maria  Child's  Juvenile  Miscellany,  a  pioneer  juvenile  maga- 
zine flourishing  in  the  twenties  and  thirties." 

Near  the  home  of  the  Sedgwicks,  it  was  remarked  in  pass- 
ing, was  the  summer  place  of  Frances  Anne  Kemble,  the 
actress-author,  between  whom  and  Miss  Sedgwick  a  life-long 
friendship  existed.  Her  home  was  in  Lenox  for  more  than 
thirty  years,  and  her  best  work  in  prose  and  verse  was  done 
here. 

Hawthorne's  "  little  red  cottage "  was  off  the  main 
thoroughfare,  on  a  winding  by-road,  now  a  street  bearing  his 
name,  on  the  edge  of  Stockbridge.  We  could  see  only  its  site, 
for  the  house  burned  down  some  years  ago.  It  was  a  story  - 
and-a-half  cottage,  painted  red,  not  prepossessing,  indeed  Haw- 
thorne called  it  an  "  ugly  little  house,"  but  comfortable ; 
while  its  situation,  on  a  slope  north  of  Lake  Mahkeenac,  —  or 
Stockbridge  Bowl,  as  Miss  Sedgwick  called  it,  —  overlooking 
the  valley  of  the  Housatonic  and  surrounded  by  mountains, 
was  superb.  "  Poor  as  the  place  was,"  I  quoted  from  Lathrop's 


458 


LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 


sketch  of  Hawthorne,  "  it  soon  became  invested  by  its  occu- 
pants with  something  of  a  poetic  atmosphere."  Mrs.  Haw- 
thorne brightened  the  interior,  and  among  other  touches 

"  ornamented  an  entire 
set  of  plain  furniture, 
painted  a  dull  yellow, 
with  copies  from  Flax- 
man's  outlines,  executed 
with  great  perfection." 
The  study,  I  added,  was, 
as  usual,  an  upstairs  room. 
Here  after  the  completion 
of  "The  House  of  the 
Seven  Gables,"  Haw- 
thorne wrote  the  "  Won- 
der Book,"  in  the  closing 
chapter  of  which  fanciful 
allusion  is  made  to  his 
literary  companions  dur- 
ing the  Lenox  life;  and 
I  read  this  passage :  — 


HAWTHORNE'S    DESK,   USED    IN  THE    "RED 
COTTAGE." 


"  '  For  my  part,  I  wish  I 
had  Pegasus  here,  at  this 
moment,'  said  the  student. 

4 1  would  mount  him  forthwith,  and  gallop  about  the  country,  within 
a  circumference  of  a  few  miles,  making  literary  calls  on  my  brother- 
authors.  Dr.  Dewey  [the  Rev.  Orville  Dewey]  would  be  within  my 
reach,  at  the  foot  of  Taconic  [Mountain].  In  Stockbridge,  yonder, 
is  Mr.  James  [G.  P.  R.  James,  the  English  novelist],  conspicuous 
to  all  the  world  on  his  mountain-pile  of  history  and  romance.  Long- 
fellow, I  believe,  is  not  yet  at  the  Ox-bow,  else  the  winged  horse  would 
neigh  at  the  sight  of  him.  But  here  in  Lenox,  I  should  find  our  most 
truthful  novelist,  who  has  made  the  scenery  and  life  of  Berkshire  all 
her  own  [Miss  Sedgwick].  On  the  hither  side  of  Pittsfield  sits  Herman 
Melville,  shaping  out  the  gigantic  conception  of  his  "  White  Whale," 
while  the  gigantic  shape  of  Graylock  looms  upon  him  from  his  study- 


AMONG    THE  BERKSHIRE  HILLS.  459 

window.  Another  bound  of  my  flying  steed  would  bring  me  to  the  door 
of  Holmes,  whom  I  mention  last,  because  Pegasus  would  certainly  un- 
seat me,  the  next  minute,  and  claim  the  poet  as  his  rider.' 

"  '  Have  we  not  an  author  for  our  next  neighbor  ?  '  asked  Primrose. 
'That  silent  man  who  lives  in  the  old  red  house,  near  Tanglewood 
Avenue,  and  whom  we  sometimes  meet  with  two  children  at  his  side,  in 
the  woods  or  at  the  lake  [himself].  I  think  I  have  heard  of  his  having 
written  a  poem,  or  a  romance,  or  an  arithmetic,  or  a  school-history,  or 
some  other  kind  of  a  book.' 

"  The  Hawthornes  lived  here  only  a  year  and  a  half,  — 
from  the  early  summer  of  1850  to  December  1851,"  I  remarked 
as  we  drove  away  from  the  picturesque  spot.  "  They  came  to 
Lenox  with  two  children,  and  left  with  three,  for  in  May  of 
the  latter  year  the  daughter  Rose  was  born.  She  was  the 
last  of  their  children.  She  became  the  wife  of  George  Par- 
sons Lathrop  (born  in*0ahu,  Hawaiian  Islands,  1851  —  died  in 
New  York  City,  1898),  author,  and  the  editor  of  Hawthorne's 
collected  works.  Her  <  Memories  of  Hawthorne,'  composed  of 
the  letters  of  her  mother  interspersed  with  delicate  biographical 
notes  of  her  own,  gives  clearer  and  more  intimate  glimpses  of 
the  life  of  the  romancer  and  his  wife,  than  the  more  formal 
biography  can  afford." 

Again  on  the  main  road,  I  indicated  in  a  general  way,  with 
a  sweep  of  the  hand  in  a  southeasterly  direction,  the  locality 
of  Henry  Ward  Beecher's  Lenox  summer  home,  the  scenery 
about  which  he  sketched  or  discoursed  upon  in  his  "  Star 
Papers."  This  was  on  a  hill  toward  the  town  of  Lee,  which 
afterward  was  called  Beecher  Hill. 


We  drove  into  Stockbridge  as  the  sun  was  about  setting, 
and  the  beauty  of  the  town,  lying  in  the  river  valley,  nearly 
surrounded  by  mountains,  enchanted  Percy.  We  found  its 
natural  attractions  much  as  Bryant  first  saw  them  as  he 
passed  through  the  town  when  coming  from  Cummington  to 
Great  Barrington  to  live,  eighty-six  years  ago :  except  that  the 


460 


LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 


foliage  was  green  instead  of  golden.  "I  well  remember," 
Bryant  wrote  half  a  century  after,  "  as  I  passed  through 
Stockbridge,  how  much  I  was  struck  by  the  beauty  of  the 
smooth  green  meadows  on  the  borders  of  the  lovely  river 
which  winds  near  the  Sedgwick  mansion,  the  Housatonic,  and 
whose  gently  flowing  waters  seemed  tinged  with  the  gold 
and  crimson  of  the  trees  which  overhung  them.  I  admired  no 
less  the  contrast  between  this  soft  scene,  and  the  steep  craggy 
hills  that  overlooked  it,  clothed  with  their  many  colored  for- 
ests." The  meadows,  the  winding  river,  the  overhanging 

trees,  the  forest- 
clad  hills  above, 
were  all  here, 
while  added 
charms  were  the 
bowery  streets  and 
pleasant  mansions, 
round  about  the 
town  center. 

Our  drive 
ended  at  the  Eed 
Lion  Inn,  which 
was  to  be  our 
home  for  this 

night.  After  refreshing  ourselves  with  a  late  dinner  we 
strolled  out  into  the  soft  night  air,  and  enjoyed  an  evening 
view  of  the  embowered  town. 

The  next  morning  we  again  made  an  early  start,  since  for 
this  day  we  had  also  arranged  an  extensive  schedule. 

Of  the  village  landmarks,  mainly  of  interest  to  us  were 
"  Edwards  Hall,"  the  Stockbridge  home  of  Jonathan  Edwards, 
and  the  Sedgwick  mansion.  Edwards  Hall,  we  learned,  was 
originally  the  home  of  John  Sergeant,  the  predecessor  of 
Edwards  as  missionary  to  the  Indians,  having  been  built  for 
him  in  1737,  when  Stockbridge  was  a  sparsely  settled  frontier 


THE    SEDGWICK    MANSION    HOUSE. 


AMONG    THE  BERKSHIRE  HILLS.  461 

town.  When  Edwards  came  in  1751,  he  erected  an  addition 
to  the  already  capacious  house,  to  make  room  for  his  growing 
family.  His  study  was  a  closet,  six  by  fifteen  feet,  built 
against  the  huge  chimney,  with  one  little  window  looking 
toward  the  west.  The  desk  at  which  he  wrote  here  is  still 
preserved. 

It  was  in  this  closet-study,  with  his  scant  working  library 
near  at  hand,  that  he  wrote  besides  the  "JFreedom  of  the  Will," 
his  "  God's  End  in  Creation,"  and  «  The  Nature  of  Virtue." 
At  the  same  time  his  missionary  labors  were  conscientiously 
performed,  and  his  regular  preaching  went  on  in  the  Stock- 
bridge  church.  In  these  metaphysical  speculations  and  clerical 
labors  the  good  man  was  completely  absorbed,  while  his  effi- 
cient wife  skilfully  managed  the  temporal  affairs  of  the 
steadily  increasing  household.  In  illustration  of  his  preoccu- 
pation, I  quoted  the  following  incident  related  by  the  local 
historian.  At  one  time  as  he  was  riding  on  horseback,  he  came 
to  a  pasture,  inclosed  by  a  gate,  which  was  opened  by  a  boy 
who  respectfully  lifted  his  hat.  Asking  the  lad  whose  son  he 
was,  and  being  told,  he  thanked  him  and  rode  on.  He  returned 
not  long  after,  and  the  boy,  still  at  the  gate,  repeated  the 
favor.  The  good  minister,  roused  from  his  meditations  by  the 
act,  thanked  him,  and  again  asked  whose  son  he  was.  "  Why, 
sir/'  the  astonished  lad  replied,  "  I  am  the  same  man's  son  I 
was  fifteen  minutes  ago." 

The  Sedgwick  mansion,  shaded  by  ancient  lindens,  is  of  the 
pattern  of  the  New  England  mansion  house  of  the  late  eighteenth 
and  early  nineteeth  centuries,  —  spacious,  square-roofed,  with 
broad  hall  running  through  the  middle,  large  rooms,  high  ceil- 
ings, carved  cornices  and  mantels.  "This  was  Catherine  M. 
Sedgwick's  home,"  I  observed,  "till  her  removal  to  Lenox; 
and  accordingly  here  were  written  those  earlier  tales  which, 
established  her  name  in  the  young  American  literature  of  the 
time.  Before  she  began  to  write  she  had  received  an  unusual 
mental  training  for  a  woman  in  her  day.  To  her  school  educa- 


462 


LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 


tion,  rounded  out  in  l  young  ladies'  finishing  schools '  away  from 
her  home,  was  added  the  instruction  gained  from  reading  stand- 
ard literature  in  her  father's  library.  Hers  was  an  exception- 
ally cultivated  home.  Her  father,  Judge  Theodore  Sedgwick, 
was  a  justice  of  the  Massachusetts  Supreme  Court  from  1802 

till  his  death  in 
1813.  Her  eldest 
brother,  Theo- 
dore, a  Yale  grad- 
uate of  1799,  be- 
came an  eminent 
member  of  the 
bar,  and  a  writer 
on  economics. 
Her  second 
brother,  Henry 
Dwight,  graduat- 
ing from  Wil- 
liams College, 
became  a  leading 
member  of  the 
New  York  bar,  a 
frequent  contrib- 
.  utor  to  the  North 
American  Review, 
and  a  litterateur 
of  note.  The 
third  brother,  Charles,  was  also  a  man  of  letters.  The  elder 
brothers  especially  encouraged  the  development  of  her  literary 
powers. 

« Miss  Sedgwick's  first  story,  <  A  New  England  Tale,'  was 
begun  as  a  religious  tract,  and  was  expanded  to  the  propor- 
tions of  a  novel  at  the  earnest  solicitation  of  her  brothers  and 
friends  who  saw  possibilities  in  the  sketch.  It  was  published 
in  1822,  anonymously,  and  its  flattering  reception  induced  her 


CATHERINE    M.   SEDGWICK, 


AMONG    THE  BERKSHIRE  HILLS.  463 

to  engage  seriously  in  literary  pursuits.  '  Redwood,'  a  novel 
of  the  then  conventional  two-volume  order,  followed,  also  pub- 
lished anonymously.  This  met  larger  success  than  the  first 
effort.  It  was  reprinted  in  England,  and  translated  into  four 
foreign  languages :  quite  remarkable,  when  you  remember  the 
time  of  its  issue,  the  mid-twenties,  when  American  writers 
were  of  small  account  in  the  book  world.  '  Hope  Leslie,'  her 
Indian  story,  and  <  Clarence,'  were  the  last  of  her  books  pub- 
lished while  she  was  living  here.  *  Hope  Leslie  '  brought  her 
widest  celebrity.  Stockbridgians  point  out  a  neighboring 
mountain  crag  as  the  scene  of  the  Indian  maiden  <  Maga- 
wisca's'  sacrifice  in  the  rescue  of . '  Everell ' ;  and  other  places 
described  in  this  tale  are  identified  hereabouts.  Miss  Sedg- 
wick's  grave  is  in  the  village  graveyard,  marked  by  a  plain 
monument  simply  inscribed.'7 

In  the  old  Stockbridge  church  are  tablets  to  the  memory  of 
John  Sergeant,  Jonathan  Edwards,  and  David  Dudley  Field. 
Dr.  Field,  who  was  minister  of  the  church  from  1819  to  1837, 
was  the  father  of  those  eminent  brothers,  David  Dudley  Field, 
the  jurist,  Stephen  Johnson  Field,  the  justice  of  the  United 
States  Supreme  bench,  Cyrus  West  Field,  promoter  of  ocean 
telegraphy,  and  Henry  Martyn  Field,  clergyman,  editor,  and 
author;  and  their  sister,  Emelia  (Field)  Brewer,  wife  of  an 
American  missionary  in  Turkey,  and  mother  of  another 
United  States  Supreme  Court  justice.  Cyrus  and  Henry  were 
born  here,  the  former  in  1819,  the  latter  in  1822 ;  David  and 
Stephen  were  born  in  Haddam,  Conn.,  in  1805  and  1816  respec- 
tively, where  the  father  was  settled  before  coming  to  Stock- 
bridge.  Dr.  Field  himself  was  locally  distinguished  as  an 
historical  writer.  Ketiring  from  the  ministry  in  the  fifties,  he 
spent  his  remaining  years  in  literary  occupations  here.  He 
died  in  1867.  We  saw  his  old  home  on  the  site  of  the  second 
home  of  John  Sergeant,  on  Prospect  Hill ;  and  the  former 
country  seats  of  the  sons  David  and  Henry  — "  Eden  Hall " 
and  "  Windermere  "  —  commanding  beautiful  views, 


464 


LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 


The  ride  of  eight  miles  to  Great  Barrington  was  full  of 
beauty.  The  road  crossed  the  river,  skirted  Monument  Moun- 
tain, coursed  through  woods  and  along  the  open,  revealing 
lovely  vistas  and  far-spreading  landscapes.  About  a  mile  out 
from  Stockbridge  center  a  side  road  was  indicated  which  led 
toward  "  Cherry  Cottage,"  birthplace  of  the  learned  Mark  Hop- 
kins (born  1802  —  died  in  Williamstown,  1887),  fourth  presi- 


THE   OLD    HOME    OF   BRYANT,   GREAT    BARRINGTON. 

dent  of  Williams  College,  1837-1872,  whose  treatises  in  the 
field  of  moral  science  gave  him  first  rank  among  scholars  of 
his  theological  tenets. 

At  the  entrance  to  the  village  stood  the  old  Bryant  home- 
stead on  the  broad  main  street.  Here,  it  was  remarked,  the 
poet  was  married,  in  1821,  to  Frances  Fairchild  of  Great  Bar- 
rington, whom  he  apostrophized  in  his  verses,  «  Oh,  Fairest  of 
the  Rural  Maids." 

She  became  his  "  confidant,  counselor,  and  partner  "  through 
nearly  half  a  century  ;  his  best  critic,  whose  approval  the  verses 
written  after  their  union  had  first  to  receive  before  he  would 


AMONG   THE  BERKSHIRE  HILLS.  4G5 

permit  them  to  meet  the  public  eye.  In  the  village  the  place 
of  his  law  office  was  pointed  out  to  us.  In  the  town  house 
were  shown  the  records  which  he  kept  during  his  several  years' 
service  as  town  clerk ;  among  them  the  record  of  his  own  mar- 
riage, and  that  of  the  birth  of  his  first  child. 

As  we  moved  among  these  landmarks,  incidents  of  the 
poet's  life  in  the  town,  extending  from  his  twenty -second  to  his 
thirty-first  year  (1816-1825),  were  related  to  Percy.  "  During 
this  period  of  nine  years,"  he  was  told,  "  the  poet  practiced  his 
profession  as  a  lawyer  with  a  fair  degree  of  success,  interested 
himself  wholesomely  in  local  affairs  and  somewhat  in  politics, 
and  composed  more  than  thirty  poems.  These  verses  included 
1 A  Winter  Piece/  <  The  West  Wind/  <  June/  <  The  Kivulet/ 
'  Monument  Mountain/  '  A  Walk  at  Sunset/  '  The  Hymn  to 
Death/  <  Green  River/  <  After  a  Tempest/  and  <A  Forest 
Hymn/  —  the  poems  upon  which  rests  the  fame  which  has 
been  accorded  him  as  the  '  most  American  of  our  poets '  and 
the  skillfullest  painter  of  the  scenery  of  his  native  land.  Most 
of  these  poems  describe  points  in  the  region  about  this  town 
and  the  poet's  more  rural  birthplace  of  Cummington.  Green 
River  lies  a  mile  west  of  Great  Barrington  village,  with  its 
waters 

"  ' .  .  .  winding  away  from  sight 

Darkened  with  shade  or  flashing  with  light, 
While  o'er  them  the  vine  to  its  thicket  clings, 
And  the  zephyr  stoops  to  freshen  his  wings.'  — 

It  was  in  the  poem  on  this  theme  that  the  poet  expressed  his 
longing  to  escape  from  the  drudgery  of  his  profession  : 

"  'Though  forced  to  drudge  for  the  dregs  of  men, 
And  scrawl  strange  words  with  the  barbarous  pen, 
And  mingle  among  the  jostling  crowd, 
Where  the  sons  of  strife  are  subtle  and  loud  — 
I  often  come  to  this  quiet  place, 
To  breathe  the  airs  that  ruffle  thy  face, 


466  LI TEH A EY  PILGRIMAGES. 

And  gaze  upon  thee  in  silent  dream, 
For  in  thy  lonely  and  lovely  stream 
An  image  of  that  calm  life  appears 
That  won  my  heart  in  my  greener  years.' 

"  *  The  Rivulet '  depicts  a  little  stream  which  threads 
through  the  grounds  of  the  homestead  at  Cummington.  The 
scene  of  l  The  Forest  Hymn,'  with  that  familiar  opening  line, 
'  The  groves  were  God's  first  temples/  was  also  in  Cumming- 
ton. <  The  Death  of  the  Flowers,'  beginning  with  the  much- 
quoted  '  The  melancholy  days  are  come,  the  saddest  of  the 
year,'  was  inspired  here  in  Great  Barrington." 

Percy  now  asked  for  the  promised  story  of  Bryant's  earlier 
life  at  his  birthplace. 

"Cummington,"  I  accordingly  related,  "is  one  of  those 
Massachusetts  hill  towns,  remote  from  railways,  which  have 
retained  their  unchanging  pastoral  aspect  through  the  chang- 
ing years.  Its  rural  features  and  its  surrounding  scenery, 
which  have  been  immortalized  by  Bryant's  pen,  all  remain. 
The  region  about  his  birthplace  is  to-day  much  as  when  he 
wrote :  — 

"  *  I  stand  upon  my  native  hills  again, 

Broad,  round,  and  green,  that  in  the  summer  sky 
With  garniture  of  wavy  grass  and  grain, 

Orchards,  and  beechen  forests,  basking  lie, 
While  deep  the  sunless  glens  are  scooped  between 
Where  brawl  o'er  shallow  beds  the  streams  unseen.' 

"  Bryant  was  as  fortunate  in  his  parentage  as  in  the  place 
of  his  birth.  His  father,  Dr.  Peter  Bryant,  of  a  line  of  physi- 
cians, has  been  described  as  a  genial,  scholarly,  poetic,  broad- 
minded  man ;  his  mother,  Sally  Snell  Bryant,  as  plodding,  per- 
sistent, energetic,  <  scrupulous  as  the  laws  of  light.'  She  was 
of  Pilgrim  stock,  being  a  descendant  of  John  Alden,  while  Dr. 
Bryant  was  also  of  Old  Colony  ancestry.  Her  father,  Squire 
Snell,  moved  up  to  Cummington  with  his  family  from  Eastern 


AMONG    TdE  BERKSHIRE   HILLS.  4G7 

Massachusetts,  and  Dr.  Bryant,  of  the  same  town,  following, 
married  Sally  Snell  there  in  1792.  William  Cullen  was  their 
eldest  son,  born  in  November,  1794.  He  was  named  for  Dr. 
William  Cullen,  a  renowned  Scotch  physician  and  medical 
teacher,  who  had  died  four  years  before.  His  poetical  aspira- 
tions developed  very  early,  and  were  encouraged  by  his  father, 
who  directed  his  studies  and  guided  his  reading.  <  Lying  be- 
fore the  evening  birch  fire,'  Parke  Godwin,  his  son-in-law  and 
biographer  has  said,  '  he  read  the  Bible  and  Shakspere,  Homer 
as  Pope  gives  him,  and  Cowper  and  Wordsworth.  Out-of-doors, 
among  the  thickets,  ...  he  shouted  to  his  brothers  grand  lines 
from  the  "  Iliad  "  or  the  "  (Edipus  Tyrannus."  ' 

"  When  only  nine  years  old  the  boy  began  writing  verses, 
and  at  twelve  he  first  appeared  in  print.  This  first  printed 
piece  was  a  poem  published  in  the  county  paper,  the  Hampshire 
Gazette,  prefaced  by  an  editor's  note  stating  that  it  was  ( com- 
posed by  a  lad  twelve  years  old,  to  be  exhibited  at  the  close  of 
the  winter  school,  in  presence  of  the  master,  the  minister  of 
the  parish,  and  a  number  of  private  gentlemen/  The  next 
year,  stirred  by  the  political  spirit  which  he  had  absorbed  at 
his  father's  hospitable  fireside,  and  from  the  village  Solons,  he 
wrote  a  satire  on  Jefferson's  embargo,  with  the  title,  <  The  Em- 
bargo; or,  Sketches  of  the  Times,'  which  was  published  in 
Boston.  This  elicited  from  the  Monthly  Anthology  a  flattering 
notice,  the  critic  concluding  that  'the  young  bard  certainly 
bids  fair,  should  he  continue  to  cultivate  his  talent,  to  gain  a 
respectable  station  on  the  Parnassian  mount.'  In  his  fifteenth 
year  he  had  some  patriotic  verses  in  the  Hampshire  Gazette  on 
*  The  Genius  of  Columbia.'  Early  in  his  sixteenth  year  he  was 
a  student  at  Williams  College.  After  two  terms  he  withdrew, 
hoping  to  continue  his  studies  at  Yale ;  but  his  father  could 
not  afford  the  expense,  and  accordingly  he  turned  to  the  study 
of  law. 

"  Meanwhile  he  had  written  <  Thanatopsis,'  — which  he  kept 
a  secret ;  and  it  was  only  discovered  after  he  had  left  the  home- 


468  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

stead  to  come  here  to  Great  Barrington,  his  father  finding  it 
among  some  papers  left  behind  in  the  boy's  room.  You  re- 
member the  story  of  its  publication  in  the  North  American 
Review,  which  was  told  when  we  were  talking  about  the  elder 
Richard  Henry  Dana's  career,  during  our  walk  in  the  West  End 
of  Boston.  The  circumstances  under  which  the  poem  was 
written  are  found  detailed  in  the  '  Bryant  Homestead  Book " 
—  and  I  read  the  following  extract : 

"  It  was  here  in  Cummington  while  wandering  in  the  primeval  forests, 
over  the  floor  of  which  were  scattered  the  gigantic  trunks  of  fallen  trees, 
moldering  for  long  years,  and  suggesting  an  indefinitely  remote  antiquity, 
and  where  silent  rivulets  crept  along  through  the  carpet  of  dead  leaves,  the 
spoil  of  thousands  of  summers,  that  the  poem  .  .  .  was  composed.  The 
young  poet  had  read  the  poems  of  Kirke  White,  which,  edited  by  Southey, 
were  published  about  that  time  ;  and  a  small  volume  of  Southey 's  miscel- 
laneous poems  ;  and  some  lines  .of  those  authors  had  kindled  his  imagina- 
tion, which,  going  forth  over  the  face  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  globe,  sought 
to  bring  under  one  broad  and  comprehensive  view,  the  destinies  of  the 
human  race  in  the  present  life,  and  the  perpetual  rising  and  passing  away 
of  generation  after  generation  who  are  nourished  by  the  fruits  of  its  soil, 
and  find  a  resting-place  in  its  bosom." 

"  Under  a  somewhat  similar  mood,"  I  suggested,  " '  To  A 
Waterfowl,'  which  many  regard  as  his  best  poem,  was  written. 
As  Parke  Godwin  relates,  the  poet  was  on  his  walk  to  the 
neighboring  town  of  Plainfield,  having  left  home  to  open  his 
first  law  office  there.  It  was  toward  the  close  of  a  December 
day  in  1815.  His  heart  was  despondent,  and  as  he  was  climb- 
ing the  hill  into  the  hamlet  he  turned  round  and  looked  back 
over  the  darkening  landscape.  '  The  sun  had  already  set,  leav- 
ing behind  it  one  of  those  brilliant  seas  of  chrysolite  and  opal 
which  often  flood  the  New  England  skies ;  and  while  he  was 
looking  at  the  rosy  splendor,  with  rapt  admiration,  a  solitary 
bird  made  wing  along  the  illuminated  horizon.  He  watched 
the  lone  wanderer  until  it  was  lost  in  the  distance,  asking  him- 
self whence  it  had  come  and  to  what  far  home  it  was  flying. 
When  he  went  to  the  house  where  he  was  to  stop  for  the  night 


AMONG    THE  BERKSHIRE  HILLS. 


469 


his- mind  was  full  of  what  he  had  seen  and  felt,'  and  the  poem 
came  easily  from  his  pen." 

Returning  to  Bryant  in  Great  Barrington,  I  remarked  that 
his  first  little  volume  of  collected  poems,  published  in  1821, 
was  the  means  of  drawing  him  from  the  law  into  editorial  life. 
Henry  D.  Sedgwick,  who  had  become  his  warm  friend,  and 
Gulian  C.  Verplanck,  at  the  time  a  literary  authority  in  New 
York,  interested  them- 
selves in  procuring  an 
editorial  position  for 
him  in  that  city.  As 
a  result  he  was  ap- 
pointed assistant 
editor  of  the  New  York 
Review  and  Athenceum 
Magazine,  started  in 
1825,  whereupon  he 
closed  his  law  office 
forever,  and  removed 
to  the  city.  Thereafter 
he  was  identified  with 
New  York,  and  with 
journalism  there.  The 
Review  was  not  profit- 
able, though  excellent 
in  its  matter,  having 
as  contributors,  besides 
himself,  the  best 
among  the  little  group  of  American  writers  of  the  time. 
Halleck's  '  Marco  Bozzaris '  was  published  in  an  early  number. 
After  struggling  for  about  a  year  it  was  merged  in  one  of  its 
rivals,  which  was  in  turn  swallowed  by  another  a  few  months 
later. 

"  Three  years  after  his  coming  to  New  York  Bryant  became 
editor  of  the  New  York  Evening  Post,  with  which  he  continued 


BRYANT    AT   THE    AGE    OF   40. 


470  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

through  the  remainder  of  his  long  life,  making  it  a  power  in 
the  discussion  of  public  questions,  and  a  credit  to  American 
journalism.  His  second  collection  of  verse,  published  in  1832, 
included  the  poems  first  printed  in  the  periodicals  with  which 
he  was  connected,  or  in  various  '  Annuals.'  The  other  volumes 
which  make  up  his  works  appeared  at  intervals  through  the 
succeeding  thirty  or  forty  years.  His  translation  of  the  'Iliad ' 
and  the  '  Odyssey,'  rounding  out  his  work,  appeared  in 
1870-1871.  Bryant  died  in  New  York  City  in  May,  1878, 
suddenly,  after  delivering  an  address  at  the  unveiling  of  the 

statue  to  Mazzini  in  Central 
Park ;  and  his  grave  is  at 
'  Cedarmere,'  his  beautiful 
country  seat  for  thirty-five 
years  in  Koslyn,  Long  Island. 
"His  striking  appearance 
in  his  latter  years  has  often 
been  pictured,  but  by  none 
with  finer  touch  than  Haw- 
thorne has  given  in  this  out- 
line :  '  A  long  white  beard, 
such  as  a  palmer  might  have 
worn  as  the  growth  of  his 
long  pilgrimages;  a  brow  al- 

most  entirely  bald,  and  what  hair  he  had,  quite  heavy ;  a  fore- 
head impending,  yet  not  massive ;  dark,  bushy  eyebrows,  and 
keen  eyes,  without  much  softness  in  them  ;  a  dark  and  sallow 
complexion  ;  a  slender  figure  bent  a  little  with  age,  but  at  once 
alert  and  firm/  " 


We  now  took  a  train  on  the  picturesque  Housatonic  railway 
for  Canaan,  Connecticut,  where  we  changed  to  another  line 
along  which  we  pursued  our  way  to  Hartford.  Between  Great 
Barriugton  and  Canaan  we  passed  through  Sheffield,  as  beau- 


AMONG    THE  BERKSHIRE  HILLS.  471 

tiful  as  the  other  Berkshire  towns,  the  birthphiiv  of  I>r.  Fred- 
erick A.  P.  Barnard  (born  1809  — died  in  New  York  City,  1880), 
president  of  Columbia  College,  186-4—1889;  and  of  the  Rev. 
Dr.  Orville  Dewey  (born  1794— died  in  Sheffield,  1882),  the 
early  exponent  of  Unitarianism. 


XXII 

HARTFORD  AND   NEW   HAVEN. 

Writers  identified  with  the  "  Charter  Oak  City.1'  —  From  the  "  Hartford 
Wits"  to  the  modern  set. — The  grouped  homes  of  Harriet  Beech er 
Stowe,  Charles  Dudley  Warner,  and  "Mark  Twain."  —  Clemens's 
unique  apprenticeship  to  literature.  —  Warner's  earlier  home  of  "  My 
Summer  in  a  Garden."  —  Mrs.  Sigourney.  —  Catherine  Beecher's 
celebrated  Academy.  —  Emma  Willard.  —  The  trio  of  Hartford 
literary  editors  :  Brainard,  Prentice,  and  Whittier.  —  Productions 
of  the  "  Hartford  Wits."  —The  "  City  of  Elms."  —  Literary  men  as 
Yale  students.  —  The  Trumbull  Gallery.  —  Distinguished  graves  in 
the  Old  Burying  Ground.  —  The  poets  Hillhouse  and  Percival.  — 
Theodore  Winthrop.  —  Donald  G.  Mitchell  at  "  Edgewood." 

UPON  arriving  at  Hartford  we  sought  at  once  the  land- 
marks which  gave  the  "  Charter  Oak  City  "  its  distinction 
through  a  succession  of  years  as  the  home  of  the  later  "  Hart- 
ford group  "  of  authors.  The  leaders  of  these  were  Harriet 
Beecher  Stowe,  Charles  Dudley  Warner,  and  "  Mark  Twain." 

Writers  earlier  identified  with  Hartford,  as  Percy  had  been 
informed,  were  Lydia  Huntley  Sigourney  (born  in  Norwich, 
Conn.,  1791  —  died  in  Hartford,  1865),  Emma  Hart  Willard 
(born  in  Berlin,  Conn.,  1787  —  died  in  Troy,  K  Y.,  1870), 
George  D.  Prentice  (born  in  Preston,  Conn.,  1802  —  died  in 
Louisville,  Ky.,  1870),  John  Gardner  Calkins  Brainard  (born 
in  New  London,  Conn.,  1796  —  died  there,  1828),  and  John  G. 
Whittier  —  the  latter  through  his  work  of  a  few  years  as  a 
newspaper  editor.  Before  these  flourished  "  The  Hartford 
Wits,"  -  -  John  Trumbull  (born  in  Watertown  [then  West- 
bury],  Conn.,  1750  —  died  in  Detroit,  Mich.,  1831),  Dr.  Lemuel 
Hopkins  (born  in  Waterbury,  Conn.,  1750  —  died  in  Hartford, 

472 


HARTFORD  AND  NEW  HAVEN.  473 

1801),  Joel  Barlow  (born  in  Reading,  Conn.,  1755  —  died  in 
Paris,  France,  1812),  Theodore  Dwight,  the  elder  (born  in 
Northampton,  Mass.,  1764— died  in  New  York  City,  1846), 
and  Colonel  David  Humphreys  (born  in  Derby,  Conn.,  1753  - 
died  in  New  Haven,  1818).  These  men  together  formed  a 
club  of  satirists,  in  literary  association  through  a  number  of 
years  following  the  Revolution,  who,  as  Professor  Henry  A. 
Beers  affirms  in  the  "  Memorial  History  of  Hartford  County," 
"  represented  a  concentration  of  talent  such  as  had  not  hitherto 
existed  in  any  American  town."  Noah  Webster  (born  in  West 
Hartford,  1785  — died  in  New  Haven,  1843),  the  lexicog- 
rapher, also  spent  a  few  of  his  active  years  in  Hartford,  and 
here  published,  in  1783,  his  famous  spelling  book,  the  first  part 
of  the  "  Grammatical  Institute  of  the  English  Language." 

The  homes  of  the  later  Hartford  group  were  in  close 
neighborhood,  in  the  pleasantest  of  the  residential  parts  of  the 
city,  occupying  the  hill  to  the  west  of  the  railroad  round 
which  winds  the  Park  River.  We  reached  the  quarter  by 
trolley  car  from  the  railroad  station. 

The  vine-embowered  house  built  for  "  Mark  Twain,"  which 
Hartford  visitors  are  wont  first  to  seek  because  of  its  fame 
through  repeated  descriptions,  stands  on  a  knoll  well  back 
from  the  street,  beside  an  oak  grove.  Like  most  of  the  resi- 
dences of  this  quarter  it  is  a  brick  house,  but  so  constructed, 
of  different  colored  bricks  in  fanciful  courses,  and  so  original 
in  design,  as  to  be  unique  among  its  neighbors,  as  is  the 
author  among  his  fellows.  It  was  Cleinens's  second  Hartford 
home,  built  for  him  a  few  years  after  he  had  made  this  city 
his  permanent  abiding-place.  When  he  occupied  it  the  beauty 
and  comfortableness  of  its  interior  were  much  discoursed 
upon,  and  many  imagined  it  to  be  an  ideal  working-place.  The 
wide  hall,  with  its  carved  furniture,  easy-chairs,  and  cushioned 
recesses  ;  the  library,  similarly  furnished,  v/ith  crowded  book- 
shelves, closed  at  one  end  by  the  conservatory,  and  with  its 
windows  looking  out  upon  the  attractive  grounds ;  the  fully 


474 


LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 


equipped  study,  • —  all  seemed  to  the  uninitiated  to  invite  to  lit- 
erary labor  under  the  most  delightful  conditions.  But  Clemens 
found  it  distracting,  and  when  he  had  work  in  hand  he  went 
up  to  the  billiard  room  at  the  top  of  the  house  a.nd  took  his 
seat  at  a  table  so  placed  that  he  "  could  see  nothing  but  the 
wall  and  a  few  shelves  of  working  books  before  him."  At 
other  times,  when  particularly  absorbed  by  a  piece  of  work, 
he  abandoned  the  house  altogether,  and  locked  himself  into  a 


THE    "MARK   TWAIN    HOUSE,"    HARTFORD. 

little  room  in  an  office  building  down  town.  He  has  been 
quoted  as  saying  that  when  he  has  once  begun  an  extended 
work  it  is  necessary  to  keep  steadily  at  it  from  day  to  day 
without  changing  his  surroundings. 

"'Mark  Twain'  (born  Samuel  Langhorne  Clemens,  in 
Florida,  Mo.,  1835  — ),"  I  remarked,  «  came  to  Hartford  to  live 
in  1871,  after  the  publication  of  his  <  Innocents  Abroad/  and 
here  were  written  some  of  his  famous  books.  You  know  the 
origin  of  his  nom  de  plume,  —  that  it  was  reminiscent  of  his 


HARTFORD  AND  NEW  HAVEN. 


475 


life  as  a  Mississippi  River  pilot,  when  the  call  e  mark  twain !  ' 
in  the  navigation  of  the  river  became  most  familiar  to  his  ears  ? 
Clemens's  literary  success,  which  has  carried  him  to  the  head 
of  his  class  of  writers  in  this  age,  has  been  truly  called  one  of 
the  romances  of  American  life  and  letters.  He  was  nearing 
thirty  before  he  had  written  a  line  for  publication,  or  had 
seriously  thought  of  authorship.  His  training,  moreover,  was 
quite  foreign  to  letters. 
At  twelve  he  was  through 
with  school,  and  working 
for  his  living.  His  father 
died  at  this  time.  Soon 
afterward  the  boy  was  ap- 
prenticed in  a  printing- 
office  for  three  years.  He 
became  a  pilot  on  the 
Mississippi  at  seventeen. 
This  calling  he  pursued 
for  seven  years,  sailing  up 
and  down  the  river  be- 
tween St.  Louis  and  New 
Orleans,  meeting  many 
adventures,  and  coming  in 
contact  with  the  rough 
and  ready  characters  en- 
countered in  the  river 
traffic  before  the  Civil 
War,  all  of  which  furnished  him  material  for  his  after  writ- 
ings. At  twenty-four  he  was  in  Nevada  as  private  secretary 
for  his  brother,  then  the  Territorial  Secretary.  Soon,  however, 
this  clerical  work  was  dropped,  and  he  became  a  miner.  Two 
or  three  years  were  spent  in  the  mines  without  profit  except 
in  experience.  Then  he  became  a  newspaper  reporter  in 
Virginia  City. 

u  With  this   work  his  first  attempts  at  humorous  writing 


MARK   TWAIN. 


476  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

were  made,  and  at  the  outset  he  adopted  his  signature  of  <  Mark 
Twain.'  His  paragraphs  and  sketches  were  copied  in  other 
journals,  and  after  a  while  he  got  a  better  place  on  a  San  Fran- 
cisco paper.  In  1866  he  was  sent  to  the  Sandwich  Islands  te 
write  up  the  sugar  industry  for  his  paper.  Upon  his  return 
he  took  to  the  lecture  platform  with  a  lecture  on  Hawaii.  In 
this  effort  sober  history  and  description  of  the  islands  and  the 
people  were  so  cheerfully  interwoven  with  humorous  note  and 
comment,  and  the  whole  so  phrased,  in  homely,  rugged  English, 
often  with  witty  turns  of  gravely  started  sentences,  that  popu- 
lar audiences  were  captured  by  it,  and  he  found  himself  with 
a  growing  reputation  on  the  Pacific  coast.  Coming  East  with 
this  lecture  he  met  similar  success. 

"  When  in  New  York,  in  1867,  he  published  his  <  Celebrated 
Jumping  Frog  of  Calaveras,'  and  the  same  year  he  sailed  on 
the  Quaker  City  expedition  to  the  Orient.  From  this  journey 
came  his  (  Innocents  Abroad,'  written  out  in  California  after 
his  return.  Its  publication  made  him  instantly  famous.  He 
continued  lecturing  with  increasing  favor,  wrote  constantly, 
and  in  1871,  when  Hartford  became  his  permanent  home,  his 
next  book,  <  Roughing  It,'  appeared.  Two  years  later  came 
'  The  Gilded  Age,'  written  in  collaboration  with  Charles  Dud- 
ley Warner,  in  which  figures  '  Colonel  Sellers,'  who  stands  for 
the  optimistic  American  speculator  proclaiming  for  every  <  wild- 
cat '  venture  '  there's  millions  in  it ! '  Then  followed  at  inter- 
vals of  a  year  or  two  the  succession  of  productions  including 
'The  Adventures  of  Tom  Sawyer,'  'The  Prince  and  the 
Pauper,'  <  Personal  Recollections  of  Joan  of  Arc,'  *  Pudd'nhead 
Wilson,'  <  The  Adventures  of  Huckleberry  Finn,'  and  '  A  Con- 
necticut Yankee  in  King  Arthur's  Court,'  which  added  luster 
to  his  fame. 

"As  his  reputation  was  expanding,  Clemens  pursued  a  sys- 
tematic course  of  study  in  English  language,  literature,  and 
history,  and  acquainted  himself  with  the  works  of  the  mas- 
ters, his  readings  taking  a  wide  range  j  thus  grandly  did  he 


IIARTFORD  AND  NEW  HAVEN. 


477 


478  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

make  up  for  his  youthful  shortcomings  in  literary  culture. 
Then  he  set  himself  determinedly  to  the  acquisition  of  the 
French  and  German  languages,  although  he  had  passed  the  age 
when  foreign  languages  are  comfortably  acquired,  and  the 
strange  words  and  idioms  tangled  on  his  elderly  tongue." 

Mrs.  Stowe,  in  her  slate-colored  cottage  set  among  trees, 
back  from  a  shrub,  and  flower-bedecked  lawn,  was  Mark  Twain's 
next-door  neighbor,  their  estates  adjoining,  though  hers  faced 
another  street.  The  Stowe  family  came  here  to  live  in  the 
early  seventies,  we  were  told,  and  the  place  remained  their 
Northern  home  till  Mrs.  Stowe's  death  in  1896.  This  also  was 
their  second  home  in  Hartford.  The  earlier  house  built  for 
Mrs.  Stowe,  after  her  own  plans,  in  1865,  was  in  the  eastern 
part  of  the  city.  It  stood  in  the  midst  of  an  extensive  grove 
of  oaks,  which  had  been  one  of  the  favorite  resorts  of  her 
girlhood,  and  on  the  spot  where,  early  in  her  married  life,  she 
had  declared  that  if  she  should  ever  be  able  to  build  a  house 
of  her  own,  it  should  be  placed.  The  site  was  on  another  bank 
of  Park  River,  near  the  junction  of  this  wandering  stream 
with  the  Connecticut,  and  it  was  then  a  beautiful  situation 
beyond  the  business  limits.  In  course  of  time,  however,  fac- 
tories encroached  upon  the  neighborhood,  the  city  reached  out 
to  it,  and  its  charm  was  dispelled.  Then  Mrs.  Stowe  bought 
this  Forest-Street  place,  and  the  once  picturesque  gabled  dwell- 
ing among  the  oaks  degenerated,  as  the  oaks  were  shorn,  into 
a  tenement  for  factory  hands,  and,  in  its  last  stage,  into  a  fac- 
tory storage  place. 

The  Forest-Street  estate  was  agreeably  adorned,  and  the 
hospitable  home  became  the  Mecca  of  admirers  who  came  from 
many  quarters  to  pay  homage  to  the  author  during  her  last 
quiet  years  here.  The  library,  with  its  tall  panels  painted 
with  flowers  in  the  wall  spaces  between  the  windows,  was  also 
the  family  sitting-room,  and  here  the  more  intimate  guests  were 
received.  A  feature  of  the  parlor  was  a  secretary  filled  with 
editions  of  "  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin  "  and  other  popular  works  of 


HARTFORD  AND  NEW  HAVEN. 


479 


480 


LITERACY  PILGRIMAGES. 


Mrs.  Stowe,  iu  various  foreign  languages.  Mrs.  Stowe  had  no 
special  study  in  the  house,  but  wrote  sometimes  in  the  library, 
more  frequently  in  her  own  room  over  the  parlor.  Of  her  later 
works,  written  in  Hartford,  "  We  and  Our  Neighbors "  was 
finished  here.  "  Oldtown  Folks  "  and  "  Pink  and  White  Tyr- 
anny "  were  written  in  the  other  house. 

Charles  Dudley  Warner  (born  in  Plainfield,  Mass.,  1829  — 
died  in  Hartford,  1900)  was  the  other  next-door  neighbor  of 
Mark  Twain,  on  the  south  side;  and  a  foot-path  well  worn  by 


LATER   HOME   OF    CHARLES    DUDLEY    WARNER. 

the  two  friends  passed  between  their  places.  The  beautiful 
woodland  estate  was  Warner's  last  home.  His  earlier  home, 
the  little  red  brick  cottage  embowered  in  green,  with  the 
garden  at  the  back  which  inspired  his  first  book,  was  near  by. 
There  also  «  Saunterings,"  «  Backlog  Studies/'  «  Baddeck  and 
That  Sort  of  Thing,"  were  written. 

He  bought  this  larger  and  architecturally  handsomer  house 
with  its  bays,  verandas,  gables,  and  dormers,  and  refashioned 
it  to  his  taste,  after  his  wide  journey  ings  abroad,  from  which 


HARTFOED  AND  NEW  HAVEN.  481 

came  "My  Winter  on  Ilie  Nile"  and  u  In  the  Levant."  The 
interior  a  friendly  and  gracious  hand  has  described  as  "  full  of 
light  and  comfort,  and  an  easy  informality  both  in  its  appear- 
ance and  its  atmosphere."  On  the  walls  hung  "  relics  of  the 
journeyings  about  the  world,  gathered  in  Nubia,  Egypt,  North- 
ern Africa,  Spain,  and  all  over  the  continent  of  Europe." 
There  were  "  portieres  and  rugs  of  interesting  Oriental  work- 
manship " ;  pictures,  choice  bits  of  china,  porcelain,  and  much 
other  bric-a-brac,  each  object  having  a  history  and  associations 
of  its  own.  Books  were  everywhere.  The  study  was  a  room 
high  up  in  a  gable,  plainly  furnished,  with  a  generous  open 
fireplace,  and  an  outlook  over  the  tree-tops  to  a  mountain 
height.  Here  it  was  long  Warner's  custom  to  work  and  write 
through  the  forenoons ;  then  in  the  afternoon  he  walked  down- 
town to  the  Courant  office  to  take  up  his  editorial  work.  He 
wrote  rapidly,  never  employing  the  typewriter,  or  dictating  to 
a  stenographer. 

"  Though  literature  was  Warner's  chosen  vocation  from  the 
beginning,"  I  continued,  "  he  was  not  able  definitely  to  devote 
himself  to  it  till  he  was  past  forty.  He  was  country  bred,  born 
on  a  farm  in  that  Massachusetts  hill  town  where  Bryant  first 
began  to  practice  law,  and  he  used  to  declaim  '  Thanatopsis ' 
while  milking  the  cow.  The  apple  orchard  of  his  father's 
farm  was  in  sight  of  the  Bryant  homestead  in  Cummington. 
When  he  was  five  his  father  died.  Till  he  was  thirteen  he 
went  to  a  district  school  in  the  neighboring  town  of  Charle- 
mont.  The  family  then  removing  to  Cazenovia,  in.  central 
New  York,  he  attended  a  seminary  there.  Afterward  he 
entered  Hamilton  College,  and  was  graduated  in  1851.  While 
he  was  a  student  he  composed  sketches  which  were  accepted  by 
the  old  Knickerbocker,  and  during  his  senior  year  he  wrote  the 
English  prize  essay.  Subsequently  his  work  occasionally  ap- 
peared in  Putnam's  Magazine.  Not  long  after  leaving  college 
he  went  west  with  the  expectation  of  becoming  connected  with 
a  projected  monthly  magazine  in  Detroit,  Michigan.  The  pro- 


482  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

ject  falling  through,  he  joined  a  surveying  party  on  the  Mis- 
souri frontier.  After  about  a  year  of  this  experience  he 
returned  to  the  East,  and  took  up  the  study  of  law.  He  re- 
ceived his  diploma  from  the  University  of  Pennsylvania,  and 
was  admitted  to  the  bar  in  Philadelphia  in  1856.  Meanwhile 
he  had  supported  himself  mainly  by  writing  for  newspapers 
and  periodicals.  He  practiced  as  a  lawyer  in  Chicago  for  four 
years.  Then,  in  1860,  he  was  induced  by  Joseph  K.  Hawley, 
afterward  general,  governor,  and  senator,  with  whom  he  had 
become  acquainted  in  Cazenovia,  to  come  to  Hartford  and  join 
him  in  the  editorship  of  the  Press.  So  ended  Warner's  career 
at  the  bar.  When  he  had  got  well  into  the  editorial  harness, 
Hawley  enlisted  in  the  army,  leaving  him  alone  in  the  conduct 
of  the  paper.  Some  time  after  the  Civil  War  the  owners  of 
the  Press,  of  whom  Warner  had  become  one,  acquired  the 
older  Courant,  and  the  two  papers  were  united,  the  Press  drop- 
ping its  name.  Warner  continued  his  association  with  the 
Courant  through  the  remainder  of  his  life,  gradually  withdraw- 
ing, in  his  latter  years,  from  active  editorial  service  as  he 
became  engrossed  in  literary  work  and  book-making. 

"  l  My  Summer  in  a  Garden '  was  first  published  in  the 
Courant  as  a  series  of  light  essays  running  through  some 
months.  They  were  originally  written  with  no  thought  of 
ultimate  issue  ' between  covers,'  —  merely  as  pleasant  'copy' 
to  lighten  the  pages  of  the  sober  newspaper  ;  but  their  buoy- 
ancy, with  their  dashes  of  wit,  philosophy,  and  gentle  satire, 
evidently  so  charmed  the  newspaper  readers  that  the  making 
a  book  of  them  was  urged  by  Warner's  associates.  When  this 
was  prepared,  however,  it  languished  for  a  publisher.  Two 
Boston  publishers  in  turn  declined  it.  It  was  too  slender, 
there  was  too  little  of  it,  they  thought.  When  after  its  un- 
happy travels  it  had  finally  returned  to  the  author,  he  happened 
one  evening  to  meet  Henry  Ward  Beecher  at  Mrs.  Stowe's  house. 
The  little  book  and  its  fate  became  one  of  the  subjects  of  their 
talk.  Mr.  Beecher  was  interested,  and  wanted  to  see  it ;  so  a 


HARTFORD  AND  NEW  HAVEN. 


483 


messenger  was  sent  over  to  Warner's  for  the  manuscript.  Mr. 
Beecher  skimmed  through  several  of  the  sketches.  Then  he 
exclaimed,  *  It  shall  be  published ;  you  have  the  real  stuff  in 
you.'  He  would  write  a  preface  to  it,  he  said,  and  would  him- 
self take  it  to  a  publisher,  who  would  not  refuse  him.  The 
promise  was  kept,  and  before  long  the  book  was  born.  Its 
reception  was  immediate  and  flattering.  Ten  thousand  copies 
were  quickly  sold,  and  it 
continued  to  sell.  War- 
ner's place  was  estab- 
lished, and  he  remained  a 
favorite  of  the  reading 
public  to  his  last  publica- 
tion. 

"  The  Garden  essays 
appeared  in  1870.  There- 
after his  books  came  at 
intervals  of  a  year  or 
two,  while  his  pen  was 
otherwise  much  employed, 
and  his  work  as  editor  of 
series  of  publications  was 
not  inconsiderable.  <  Saun- 
terings,'  which  had  vainly 
sought  a  publisher  before 
the  appearance  of  'My 
Summer  in  a  Garden,'  fol-  CHARLES  DUDLEY  WARNER. 

lowed,  helped  on  by  its  popularity.     Then  came  the  sparkling 

<  Backlog    Studies,'   <  Baddeck,  and  That  Sort  of  Thing ' ;  the 
pleasant    books    on    foreign    travel ;    later,    <  A    Koundabout 
Journey/  <  The  Pilgrimage/  <  A  Little  Journey  in  the  World,' 
which  the  critics  agree  is  his  best  work  ;  '  Studies  in  the  South 
and  West,'  '  As  We  were  Saying,'  and  so  on.     Of  his  editing, 
the   most  elaborate  work,  as  you  are  aware,  is   the   standard 

<  Library  of  the  World's  Best  Literature.' " 


484  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

While  we  were  thus  chatting,  we  had  left  the  neighborhood, 
and  were  strolling  by  a  roundabout  way  toward  "  down-town." 
At  length  in  Main  Street  and  the  business  center,  we  called  at 
the  Wadsworth  Athenaeum,  where  Percy  saw  some  interesting 
literary  relics.  He  also  noticed  here  a  bust  of  Mrs.  Sigourney. 
Continuing  our  walk  we  sought  the  site  of  her  home,  the  pil- 
lared mansion,  ample  and  imposing,  which  stood  northward 
of  Main  Street,  while  I  discoursed  lightly  on  her  career. 

"  Mrs.  Sigourney,"  this  relation  ran,  "  was  a  lady  of  fine 
qualities,  cultivated  mind,  and  talent,  given  through  her  life  to 
good  deeds  in  the  community  in  which  she  lived.  She  was 
one  of  the  most  voluminous  of  the  women  writers  of  her  time, 
and  in  the  number  of  volumes  issued  made  a  record  surpassing 
that  of  many  of  her  contemporaries  of  the  opposite  sex.  Her 
writings  had  a  devout,  often  a  definitely  religious,  always  a  pro- 
nounced moral  tone,  and  she  had  a  great  vogue  in  her  day,  for 
which,  we  must  agree  with  Professor  Beers,  the  present  genera- 
tion finds  it  hard  to  account.  All  of  her  sixty  odd  volumes 
were  widely  circulated,  and  three  volumes  of  her  poems  were 
published  in  London.  Ardent  admirers  sometimes  called  her 
<  the  Hemans  of  America.'  Her  first  book,  '  Moral  Pieces  in 
Prose  and  Verse/  was  published  in  1815  ;  her  last,  '  Letters  in 
Life,'  appeared  posthumously  in  1866. 

"  She  came  to  Hartford  in  1814  when  she  was  Miss  Huntley, 
and  opened  a  high  grade  seminary  for  young  women,  which  she 
conducted  till  her  marriage  five  years  later.  She  had  been 
gently  reared,  and  had  received  a  broader  education  than  was 
at  the  time  accorded  girls ;  while  her  tendency  to  versification, 
which  was  displayed  when  she  was  in  pinafores,  was  encouraged 
by  her  elders.  The  lines  on  the  tablet  near  her  pew  in  Christ 
Church  were  written  by  Whittier,  long  after  her  death :  — 

*'  She  sang  alone,  ere  womanhood  had  known 
The  gift  of  song  which  fills  the  air  to-day  ; 
Tender  and  sweet,  a  music  all  her  own 

May  fitly  linger  where  she  knelt  to  pray.' " 


HARTFORD  AND  NEW  HAVEN.  485 

In  another  part  of  the  business  section  we  came  to  the  site 
of  the  girls'  academy  kept  by  Catherine  Esther  Beecher  (born 
in  East  Hampton,  L.I.,  1800— died,  in  Elmira,  N.Y.,  1878)  from 
1822  to  1832,  where  her  younger  sister,  Harriet  (Mrs.  Stowe), 
studied  and  afterward  taught. 

Other  landmarks  which  we  sought  were  vague  or  obliterated. 
We  could  find  no  trace  of  the  home  of  that  other  learned  Hart- 
ford woman  and  long-time  school-teacher,  —  Emma  Willard,  — 
who  wrote  verses  along  with  graver  things.  She  came  to  Hart- 
ford in  the  late  thirties,  after  she  had  passed  middle  life.  She 
compiled  numerous  manuals  on  geography  and  history,  and 
interested  herself  especially  in  the  advancement  of  the  educa- 
tion of  women.  As  a  poet  she  is  chiefly  to  be  remembered  for 
her  ocean  hymn,  the  familiar  "  Rocked  in  the  Cradle  of  the 
Deep."  As  a  descendant  of  Thomas  Hooker,  the  founder  of 
Hartford,  she  belonged  naturally  to  this  town. 

Traces  only  were  to  be  found  of  the  habitations  or  working 
places  of  that  trio  of  Hartford  literary  editors,  Brainard,  Pren- 
tice, and  Whittier,  in  the  twenties  and  early  thirties.  "  Brainard 
was  the  first  of  them  in  order  of  time,"  I  remarked.  "  He  came 
here  in  1822  to  edit  the  Connecticut  Mirror,  having  tried  the 
law  unsuccessfully  ;  an  odd,  over-sensitive,  unambitious  young 
man  of  twenty-seven.  He  made  a  poor  editor,  but  a  good  poet. 
He  was  essentially  the  poet  of  the  Connecticut  valley.  The 
few  poems  of  his  which  have  survived  the  longest  are  on  themes 
of  this  region.  His  work  was  uneven  and  not  extensive,  for  he 
wrote  hastily,  and  died  at  thirty -three ;  but  it  endeared  him  to 
many  readers  of  his  time.  Most  of  it  was  done  for  the  weekly 
press,  unstudied  and  without  revision.  Whittier,  in  his  memoir 
of  the  poet  accompanying  his  collected  poems  published  shortly 
after  his  death,  declared  that  the  verses  thus  written  from  week 
to  week  <  would  have  done  honor  to  the  genius  of  Burns  or 
Wordsworth.' 

"  Prentice's  Hartford  career  was  brief,  covering  only  about 
two  years,  between  1828  and  1830.  It  was  brilliant  and  dash- 


486  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

ing,  and  paved  the  way  for  his  success  in  Kentucky  with  the 
Louisville  Journal  (now  the  Courier- Journal),  which  he 
founded.  He  was  not  long  out  of  college  —  he  graduated  from 
Brown  University  —  when  he  took  up  the  editor's  work  here. 
He  made  his  Hartford  paper,  the  New  England  Literary 
Review,  popular  on  the  literary  side,  and  spirited  on  the  po- 
litical side.  In  its  columns  his  earliest  and  some  of  his  best 
poems  first  appeared.  Whittier  succeeded  him  in  the  editorial 
chair  at  his  own  suggestion,  a  friendship  having  sprung  up 
between  the  two  through  correspondence  resulting  from 
Whittier's  contributions  to  the  paper  from  the  ^Amesbury 
farm.  Whittier's  engagement  was  at  first  temporary,  to  serve 
during  Prentice's  absence  in  Kentucky,  whither  he  went  in  the 
summer  of  1830  to  write  the  life  of  Henry  Clay  for  the  Presi- 
dential campaign  of  1832.  But  although  Prentice  returned  to 
Hartford  and  published  his  book  here,  he  did  not  again  take 
up  the  Review  ;  and  soon  afterward  he  went  back  to  Kentucky 
and  started  his  Louisville  Journal. 

"  The  shy  Quaker  in  homespun  was  in  marked  contrast  to 
his  worldly  and  elegant  predecessor,  but  he  performed  quite  as 
satisfactory,  and,  in  its  different  way,  as  brilliant  editorial 
work.  Prentice  in  his  farewell  editorial  introduced  him  to 
the  readers  of  the  Review  in  a  gallant  fashion :  '  I  cannot  do 
less  than  congratulate  my  readers,'  he  wrote,  '  on  the  prospect 
of  the  more  familiar  acquaintance  with  a  gentleman  of  such 
powerful  energies,  and  such  exalted  purity  and  sweetness  of 
character.'  Whittier  was  here  for  eighteen  months,  and  we 
have  seen  how  extensive  and  varied  were  his  contributions  to 
the  Review  during  that  time.  Among  his  many  poems  first 
published  in  it  was  the  (  Christ  in  the  Tempest,'  which  became 
a  favorite  in  the  <  First  Class  Keader.'  While  here,  too,  as 
we  have  noted,  he  prepared  his  first  book,  '  Legends  of  New 
England  in  Prose  and  Verse,'  and  it  was  printed  in  the  office  of 
the  Review.  In  his  writings  and  letters  he  has  given  glimpses 
of  his  Hartford  life.  He  has  told  us  that  he  boarded  first  at 


HARTFORD  AND  NEW  HAVtiN.  48? 

the  '  Old  Luut  Tavern/  and  afterward  in  the  family  of  Jonathan 
Law,  sometime  postmaster  of  Hartford,  whose  house  was  on 
Main  Street,  by  the  corner  of  Grove  Street.  It  was  his  Hart- 
ford life  that  the  poet  recalled  in  the  opening  lines  of  the 
dedication  of  '  Miriam/  to  his  friend  of  those  days,  Frederick 
A.  P.  Barnard,  who  in  his  young  manhood  wrote  for  the 
Review :  — 

"  *  The  years  are  many  since,  in  youth  and  hope 
Under  the  Charter-Oak,  our  horoscope 
We  drew  thick-studded  with  all  favoring  stars.'  " 

"  By  the  way,"  Percy  here  interjected,  "  isn't  some  relic  of 
the  Charter  Oak  preserved  ?  "  Only  its  site  is  marked,  by  a 
tablet,  he  was  told. 

Of  the  Hartford  Wits  no  definite  landmarks  were  to  be 
traced,  while  of  their  work,  it  was  remarked,  only  the  lines  of 
Truinbull's  "  M'Fingal  "  - 

"No  man  e'er  felt  the  halter  draw 
With  good  opinion  of  the  law  "  — 

survive  among  our  most  "familiar  quotations."  Percy  had 
heard  this  couplet  quoted,  but  he  knew  nothing  of  "  M'Fingal," 
he  said.  Accordingly  this  epic  of  the  Revolution,  after  the 
manner  of  Hudibras,  with  its  shafts  of  ridicule  against  the 
British  and  their  Tory  allies,  was  recalled  for  his  benefit. 
Its  object,  he  was  told,  was,  as  Trumbull  himself  stated  it,  to 
express  "  in  a  poetical  manner  a  general  account  of  the  Amer- 
ican contest,  with  a  particular  description  of  the  character  and 
manners  of  the  times,  interspersed  with  anecdotes,  which  no 
history  could  probably  record  or  display ;  and  with  as  much 
impartiality  as  possible,  satirize  the  follies  and  extravagances 
of  my  countrymen  as  well  as  of  their  enemies."  Its  principal 
characters  were  "M'Fingal,"  a  type  of  the  old-time  country 
squire,  who  stood  for  the  Tory  interests,  and  "Honorius," 
representing  the  Whigs.  It  was  finished  and  published  in 
Hartford  in  1782,  and  its  popularity  was  great.  Several  edi- 


488  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

tions  were  published  in  England  as  well  as  in  this  country. 
Professor  Beers  classes  it  as  the  best  of  American  political 
satires  in  verse  "  with  the  possible  exception  of  the  *  Biglow 
Papers.'  " 

Trumbull  was  the  chief  of  the  Hartford  Wits.  Of  the 
others,  Dr.  Lemuel  Hopkins  was  called  the  "  bludgeon  satirist." 
His  verse  mostly  appeared  in  "  The  Anarchiad,"  a  descriptive 
poem  by  the  Wits,  in  a  series  of  twenty-four  numbers  published 
in  the  newspapers.  He  also  contributed  to  similar  produc- 
tions, "  The  Echo,"  and  "  The  Political  Green  House,"  subse- 
quently issued  in  book  form.  Theodore  Dwight's  work  was 
largely  in  "The  Echo."  Joel  Barlow's  principal  effort  was 
"  The  Vision  of  Columbus,"  published  in  Hartford  in  1787, 
and  twenty  years  later  expanded  into  "  The  Columbiad," 
brought  out  in  Philadelphia.  Colonel  Humphreys's  hand  was 
in  "  The  Anarchiad."  Humphreys  earlier  wrote  his  pictur- 
esque life  of  General  Israel  Putnam,  upon  whose  staff  he  served 
as  major  at  the  beginning  of  the  Revolution.  Later  he  was 
on  Washington's  staff,  and  became  closely  attached  to  the  great 
captain,  who  inspired  his  animated  battle-pieces  and  patriotic 
verse.  He  was  the  first  American  ambassador  to  Lisbon. 

Our  walk  finished  at  the  Allyn  House,  where  we  spent 
this  night,  going  on  to  New  Haven  the  next  morning. 


Arrived  in  the  "  City  of  Elms  "  we  made  our  pleasant  way 
along  the  leafy  streets  first  of  all  to  the  Yale  College  buildings, 
west  of  the  beautiful  Green  in  the  city's  heart.  We  strolled 
about  the  elm-studded  Campus ;  viewed  the  famous  Fence,  the 
gathering  place  of  Yale  men  from  the  college's  early  days ; 
and  made  a  little  tour  of  the  buildings,  including  "  South  Mid- 
dle," the  one  spared  monument  of  the  historic  "  Old  Brick 
How." 

As  we  rambled  from  point  to  point,  here  and  there  was 
noted  a  room  or  a  quarter  identified  with  the  college  life  of 


1IARTFORD  AND  NEW  UAVEN.  489 

after  poets  and  authors,  while  Percy  was  told  of  their  student 
days.  The  brilliant  list  began  chronologically  with  James 
Fenimore  Cooper  (born  in  Burlington,  N.J.,  1789  —  died  in 
Cooperstown,  N.Y.,  1851),  who  entered  the  college  at  thirteen 
in  1802,  and  was  rusticated  before  the  end  of  his  junior  year, 
when  he  went  to  sea  as  a  midshipman  in  the  Navy.  Next 
was  James  Abraham  Hillhouse  (born  in  New  Haven,  1789  - 
died  here,  1841),  poet  and  orator,  a  college  mate  of  Cooper's, 
entering  at  sixteen,  who  early  won  a  reputation  among  college 
men  from  his  Master's  oration  on  "  The  Education  of  the  Poet," 
and  his  subsequent  Phi  Beta  Kappa  poem,  "  The  Judgment." 
To  him  Fitz-Greene  Halleck  alluded  in  his  lines  "  To  the 
Kecorder  "  — 

"  Hillhouse,  whose  music,  like  his  themes, 
Lifts  earth  to  heaven  — " 

Graduating  as  Hillhouse  entered  was  John  Pierpont,  the 
poet  and  hymn  writer  (about  whom  we  had  heard  when  in 
Eastern  Massachusetts,  in  Newburyport),  a  fine  scholar  in  col- 
lege, stimulated  to  high  endeavor  perhaps  by  reason  of  his 
descent  from  the  minister,  John  Pierpont,  one  of  the  Yale 
founders ;  whose  "  Airs  of  Palestine,"  published  a  dozen  years 
after  his  graduation,  fixed  his  literary  rank.  Then  came 
James  Gates  Percival  (born  in  Berlin,  Conn.,  1795  —  died  in 
Hazel  Green,  Wis.,  1856),  poet  and  man  of  many  talents  —  and 
idiosyncrasies,  of  the  class  of  1815,  graduating  at  its  head, 
with  his  tragedy  of  "  Zamor"  a  part  of  the  Commencement 
exercises.  Ten  years  later  N.  P.  Willis  was  here,  in  his  senior 
year  (1827)  rooming  on  the  third  floor  of  Old  North,  in  the 
same  entry  with  Horace  Bushnell,  who  was  his  classmate. 

Donald  G.  Mitchell  (born  in  Norwich,  Conn.,  1822  — ), 
genial,  philosophic  "  Ik  Marvel,"  whose  "  Reveries  of  a  Bach- 
elor "  retains  perennial  charm,  was  of  the  class  of  1841.  Three 
years  after,  in  the  class  of  1848,  entered  the  scholarly  and 
heroic  Theodore  Winthrop  (born  in  New  Haven,  1828  —  killed 


490  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

in  the  Battle  of  Great  Bethel,  Va.,  1861),  novelist,  story  writer, 
and  poet,  a  direct  descendant  from  that  second  John  Winthrop 
and  first  governor  of  Connecticut,  whose  career  we  had  traced 
when  in  "  The  Heart  of  Essex  j  "  on  his  mother's  side  in  line 
from  Jonathan  Edwards,  whose  great-granddaughter  she  was, 
and  through  her  connected  with  seven  presidents  of  Yale ;  who 
himself,  had  his  health  permitted,  would  have  followed  in  his 
ancestors'  footsteps,  and  might  have  become  a  college  president. 
Of  the  class  of  1853  was  our  poet  of  to-day,  Edmund  Clarence 
Stedman,  son  of  a  poet,  —  Mrs.  E.  C.  (Stedman)  Kinney,  - 
born  in  Hartford,  1833,  but  "brought  up"  from  infancy  in 
Norwich,  who  entered  the  college  at  fifteen,  and  at  seventeen 
was  suspended  for  some  irregularities,  though  in  later  years 
restored  to  his  class  and  given  a  master's  degree. 

Note  also  was  made  of  some  of  the  renowned  eighteenth 
century  students :  among  them  Timothy  Dwight,  graduated  in 
1769 ;  Jonathan  Edwards,  1721 ;  Noah  Webster,  1778,  in  the 
same  class  with  Joel  Barlow  of  the  Hartford  Wits  and  Oliver 
Wolcott,  their  intimate,  whose  grandfather,  Koger  Wolcott,  was 
the  earliest  Hartford  poet ;  Jedidiah  Morse,  "  the  father  of 
American  Geography,"  of  the  class  of  1783 ;  and  Benjamin 
Sillirnan,  our  "  Nestor  in  Science,"  class  of  1796.  Thirty-three 
years  after  Noah  Webster,  the  other  dictionary  maker,  Joseph 
Emerson  Worcester  (bora  in  Bedford,  N.H.,  1784  —  died  in 
Cambridge,  Mass.,  1865),  was  here  —  in  the  class  of  1811. 
Shortly  after  his  graduation  he  went  to  Salem,  Mass.,  and  set 
up  his  school,  where,  as  we  had  learned,  the  boy  Nathaniel 
Hawthorne  was  once  a  pupil.  His  "  Dictionary  of  the  English 
Language"  made  its  first  appearance  in  1860,  after  several 
years  had  been  devoted  to  its  compilation. 

In  the  School  of  Fine  Arts  building  Percy  found  much  en- 
joyment in  looking  over  the  historical  paintings  of  Colonel  John 
Trumbull,  Connecticut's  early  and  most  distinguished  painter, 
which  constitute  the  "  Trumbull  Gallery."  He  made  a  copy  of 
the  inscription  over  Trumbull's  tomb  beneath  the  building, 


UABTFO1W  AND  NEW  HAVEN.  491 

which  read :  "  Colonel  John  Trumbull,  Patriot  and  Artist, 
Friend  and  Aid  of  Washington,  lies  beside  his  wife  beneath 
this  Gallery  of  Art.  Lebanon  [Conn.],  1750  —  New  York, 
1843." 

"  Yes,"  I  replied  to  Percy's  question,  "  the  poet  John 
Trumbull  was  of  the  same  family.  The  great-grandfathers  of 
the  poet  and  the  artist  were  brothers.  The  artist  was  the  son 
of  the  first  Governor  Jonathan  Trumbull  of  Connecticut, — 
Washington's  close  friend  throughout  the  Re  volution,  —  and 
brother  of  the  second  Governor  Jonathan  Trumbull,  who  served 
from  1798  till  his  death  in  1809." 

A  short  walk  along  High  Street  to  Grove  Street  brought 
us  to  the  old  bury  ing-ground,  a  quiet  spot  behind  stone  walls, 
"separating  college  halls  on  the  one  hand  from  the  stir  of 
business  on  the  other,"  as  a  local  writer  pictures  it,  which 
Percy  desired  to  visit  when  told  that  more  distinguished  per- 
sons are  said  to  be  here  entombed  than  in  any  similar  enclos- 
ure in  the  country. 

Wandering  along  the  serene  paths  we  passed  graves  of 
presidents  of  the  college;  of  Benjamin  Silliman,  and  his  son, 
the  second  Professor  Silliman  ;  of  Noah  Webster ;  of  Jedidiah 
Morse ;  of  the  Rev.  Lyman  Beecher,  father  of  the  eminent 
Beecher  family  of  brothers  and  sisters  ;  of  the  Rev.  Leonard 
Bacon  (born  in  Detroit,  Mich.,  1802  —  died  in  New  Haven, 
1881),  the  leading  Congregationalist  editor  and  writer  in  his 
day,  and  minister  of  the  First  Church  of  New  Haven  for 
fifty-seven  years ;  and  of  his  gifted  sister  Delia  Bacon  (born 
in  Talmadge,  Ohio,  1811  —  died  in  Hartford,  1859),  writer 
of  historical  tales,  but  wider  known  as  the  prophet  of  the 
Baconian  theory  of  the  authorship  of  the  Shaksperian  plays, 
disclosed  in  her  "Philosophy  of  the  Plays  of  Shakspere 
Unfolded,"  the  publication  of  which  in  Boston  and  London 
in  1857,  two  years  before  her  death,  made  a  commotion  which 
did  not  subside  after  it  became  known  that  the  writer's  mind 
in  her  later  years  was  affected.  Also  were  seen  the  tombs  of 


492  LITERAEY  PILGRIMAGES. 

William  Dwight  Whitney  (born  in  Northampton,  Mass.,  1827 

died  in  New  Haven,  1894),  the  eminent  philologist  and 

Sanskrit  scholar  ;  of  James  Dwight  Dana  (born  in  Utica,  N.Y., 
1813  —  died  in  New  Haven,  1895),  the  geologist  and  writer  of 
authoritative  treatises  on  mineralogy ;  of  the  poet  Hillhouse ; 
and  of  Theodore  Winthrop.  The  grave  of  the  latter  was 
marked  by  a  plain  granite  cross,  simply  inscribed  with  names 
and  dates  only.  A  friend  with  us  recalled  that  when  Winthrop 
was  buried  he  was  followed  to  the  grave  by  the  students  of 
the  college  in  a  body,  by  whom  he  was  universally  beloved. 

The  building  of  the  Historical  Society  being  near,  opposite 
the  opening  of  beautiful  Hillhouse  Avenue,  we  made  a  brief  call 
there,  and  found  much  to  interest  us  in  its  literary  museum. 
Then  we  strolled  up  Hillhouse  Avenue  beneath  the  arching 
elms,  toward  the  fine  old  pillared  mansion  at  its  head  which 
was  the  latter  home  of  the  poet  Hillhouse,  in  his  time  called 
"  Sachem  Wood."  The  place  was  built  by  his  father,  the  states- 
man Hillhouse,  member  of  both  branches  of  the  Federal  Con- 
gress in  periods  following  the  Eevolution.  He  also  laid  out  the 
avenue  through  his  ancestral  farm,  himself  planting  its  lines 
of  trees,  helped  in  this  admirable  work  by  a  young  man  who 
in  after  years  had  the  satisfaction  of  walking  beneath  them 
as  President  Day  of  the  college.  And  to  the  taste  and  public 
spirit  of  the  elder  Hillhouse  is  mainly  due  the  planting  of  the 
older  New  Haven  streets  and  The  Green  with  elms,  a  century 
and  more  ago,  from  which  the  college  city  got  its  name  of  the 
"  City  of  Elms."  Of  the  poet's  earlier  compositions  written  in 
New  Haven,  the  most  important  was  his  "  Demetria,  Percy's 
Masque."  This  he  carried  to  London  in  1819  and  first  pub- 
lished there ;  immediately  after,  however,  it  was  reprinted  in 
this  country.  His  drama  of  "  Hadad,"  which  gained  him 'most 
repute,  was  written  at  "  Sachem  Wood." 

The  birthplace  of  Theodore  AVinthrop  was  in  another  part  of 
the  city,  some  distance  east  of  The  Green,  on  Wooster  Street. 
As  described  by  Winthrop' s  sister,  in  her  biography  of  him, 


HARTFORD  AND  NEW  HAVEN. 


493 


it  was  a  roomy  house  of  old-fashioned  New  England  type,  with 
hall  running  through  the  middle,  four  rooms  on  a  floor,  and  a 
great  garret.  Winthrop  here  browsed  in  an  excellent  library, 
and  had  the  good  fortune  of  companionship  with  a  scholarly 
father  and  lover  of  nature,  who  took  long  walks  with  him  into 
the  beautiful  country  around  their  home.  "  He  wrote  nothing 
of  note  here,  however,"  I  added,  "  beyond  the  theses  which  won 
him  prizes  during  his  college  term.  For  some  time  after  his 
graduation  he  was  abroad  in  search  of  health/  making  pedes- 
trian tours  about 
Scotland,  into 
France  and  Ger- 
many, in  Switzer- 
land, and  in  Italy 
and  Greece. 

"In  Kome  he 
made  the  acquaint 
ance  of  William  H. 
Aspinwall  of  New 
York,  one  of  the 
founders  of  the 
Panama  Kailroad 
on  the  Isthmus, 
and  was  engaged 
as  tutor  of  Aspin- 

walPs  boy.     Later  ^  THEODORE 

h"e  was  employed  in  the  New  York  counting-house  of  Mr. 
Aspinwall.  Soon  afterward  he  went  to  Panama,  in  the  interest 
of  the  Pacific  Steamship  Company,  where  he  spent  two  years. 
The  return  was  by  a  roundabout  way  overland.  He  traveled 
through  California  and  Oregon,  generally  in  the  saddle,  when 
traveling  —  it  was  in  the  early  fifties  —  in  those  regions  was 
more  romantic  and  more  difficult  than  now,  and  fuller  of  adven- 
ture. On  the  way  he  was  smitten  with  smallpox.  Before  he 
had  fully  recovered  he  resumed  his  journey,  and  on  the  Plains 


494  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

was  taken  ill  again.  He  lay  down  to  die ;  but  his  strength  re- 
turning, he  renewed  the  struggle  and  managed  to  pull  through- 
Back  in  New  York  he  took  up  his  old  work  in  the  counting- 
house,  but  shortly  was  oft0  again,  having  joined  the  expedition 
of  the  gallant  Lieutenant  Isaac  G.  Strain,  of  the  Navy,  to 
survey  the  Isthmus  of  Darien.  In  this  undertaking  he  ex- 
perienced many  hardships.  Again  in  New  York  he  turned  to 
the  study  of  law,  and  in  1855  was  admitted  to  the  bar. 

"At  this  time  Winthrop's  home  was  on  Staten  Island, 
where  he  was  a  near  neighbor  of  George  William  Curtis. 
Between  the  two  a  warm  friendship  sprang  up,  and  Curtis 
fostered  his  literary  activity.  He  had  written  much,  — 
sketches  of  travel,  a  novel  or  two,  and  numerous  poems,  —  but 
had  published  nothing.  In  1857  he  went  to  St.  Louis  to  prac- 
tice law  there  ;  but  his  health  was  too  precarious,  and  he  soon 
returned  East.  His  first  publication  was  a  glowing  description 
of  Church's  great  painting  of  (  The  Heart  of  the  Andes/  which 
he  had  watched  develop  on  the  canvas  in  the  artist's  studio. 
His  novel  of  '  Cecil  Dreeme ?  was  offered  first  to  one  publisher, 
then  to  another  in  the  spring  of  1860.  The  second  publisher 
accepted  it,  but  put  it  aside  because  of  the  unsettled  state  of 
public  affairs.  'Love  and  Skates,'  his  best  short  story,  was 
sent  to  the  Atlantic  Monthly  in  the  spring  of  1861.  It  so 
captivated  Lowell,  then  the  editor,  that,  upon  learning  of 
Winthrop's  enlistment  in  the  Army,  he  engaged  him  to  write 
a  series  of  war  sketches  for  the  magazine. 

"  He  enlisted  in  the  artillery  corps  of  the  New  York  Seventh 
Regiment  in  April,  1861 ;  and  his  graceful,  dashing  sketch  of 
the  '  March  of  the  Seventh  Kegiment  of  New  York  to  Wash- 
ington,' which  appeared  in  the  Atlantic  of  the  following  June, 
made  his  reputation  at  once.  His  active  military  career  cov- 
ered three  short  months.  At  Fortress  Monroe  he  was  made 
acting  military  secretary  and  aid  of  General  Benjamin  F.  But- 
ler. He  was  killed  in  the  disastrous  affair  at  Great  Bethel, 
while  standing  on  a  log  nearest  the  Confederate  battery,  wav- 


HARTFORD  AND  NEW  HAVEN.  495 

ing  his  sword  and  cheering  his  fellow  soldiers  to  the  advance. 
<On  the  19th  of  April,'  wrote  Curtis,  <he  left  the  armory 
door  of  the  Seventh  with  his  hand  upon  a  howitzer ;  on  the 
21st  of  June  his  body  lay  upon  the  same  howitzer  at  the  same 
door,  wrapped  in  the  flag  for  which  he  gladly  died/ 

"  The  works  which  have  made  Winthrop's  reputation  endurr 
ing — <  Cecil  Dreeme,'  <  John  Brent,'  <  Edwin  Brothertoft,'  'The 
Canoe  and  the  Saddle,'  <  Life  in  the  Open  Air '  —  were  all  pub- 
lished posthumously  ;  and  none  except  '  Love  and  Skates,'  and 
the  '  March  of  the  Seventh,'  received  his  final  revision.  His 
poems  are  collected  in  the  '  Life  and  Poems '  prepared  by  his 
sister  twenty  years  after  his  death." 

South  of  the  Green,  not  far  from  the  college,  was  the  quar- 
ter in  which  the  poet  Percival  lived  in  the  forties  a  hermit's 
life  in  bachelor  rooms.  These  rooms  were  in  the  upper  story  of 
the  old  State  Hospital.  Very  few,  even  of  his  near  friends, 
were  admitted  to  them.  If  others  came  to  see  him,  he  would 
open  his  entry  door  by  untying  a  rope  which  fastened  the 
outer  knob  to  the  wall,  and  come  out  into  the  entry,  where 
he  would  stand  and  talk  for  any  length  of  time,  or  take  his 
caller  below  to  the  reception-rooms  of  the  hospital.  One  of  his 
rooms  contained  his  valuable  library  and  collection  of  minerals, 
another  was  his  study,  the  third  his  bedroom.  His  bed  was  a 
cot,  and  a  block  of  wood  placed  under  the  mattress  served  for 
a  pillow.  The  floors,  evidently  never  swept,  were  covered  with 
a  thick  mass  of  rolling  lint,  and  through  the  lint  was  a  beaten 
path  from  the  bed  to  the  stove,  the  writing  table,  the  library, 
and  the  entry  door.  He  had  previously  occupied  two  rooms 
over  a  bookstore  in  the  busy  part  of  Chapel  Street,  which  were 
more  crowded  than  these,  with  his  books  piled  in  double  tiers 
against  the  walls,  and  in  heaps  about  the  floors,  leaving  scarce 
space  for  his  sleeping-cot,  his  chair,  and  the  writing-table.  His 
dress  was  careless  and  of  the  simplest.  One  suit  sufficed  him 
through  summer  and  winter,  till  worn  threadbare.  His  only 
outer  garment  for  years  was  a  brown  camlet  cloak,  scant  and 


496  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

thinly  lined.  Above  this  cloak  peered  his  head  covered  with  a 
shabby  glazed  cloth  cap. 

"Such  are  the  pictures  of  the  poet  and  his  hermitage," 
I  remarked,  "which  his  biographer,  Julius  H.  Ward,  gives. 
Donald  G.  Mitchell  remembers  him,  at  the  same  period,  as 
<  thin,  haggard,  and  unkempt,  with  a  wild  look  in  his  eye,  scud- 
ding through  the  streets  with  an  uneasy,  swift  pace,  his  shoes 
unblacked  —  untied  perhaps,  other  garments  dilapidated  and 
rusty : '  with  his  '  scant  old  camlet  cloak  in  chilling  weather 
drawn  close  around  him.'  He  was  *a  cantankerous  man,' 
Mitchell  says,  '  taking  life  hard,  taking  everything  hard  except 
the  minutise  of  learning,  most  contented  and  easy  when  writing 
till  midnight  on  etymologies,  and  on  recondite  phrases  and 
philologic  puzzles.'  Yet  he  wrote  verses,  lyrics,  and  songs 
which  became  household  things. 

"  Percival  was  obliged  to  resort  to  various  sorts  of  literary 
drudgery  to  get  his  living,  since  the  practice  of  his  profession 
of  medicine  was  distasteful  to  him.  He  was  much  devoted  to 
the  pursuit  of  geology,  botany,  and  other  sciences,  in  which  he 
was  a  master,  but  poetry  was  his  best  love.  All  of  his  poetical 
work  was  done  easily  and  rapidly.  When  a  boy  of  fourteen  he 
wrote  a  mock-heroic  poem  on  the  times,  which  extended  over 
two  thousand  lines,  with  a  preface  of  nearly  two  hundred  lines, 
in  which  he  invited  the  Muse.  In  college  he  was  repeatedly 
writing  verses.  In  1820,  a  few  years  after  his  graduation,  he 
published  his  first  volume  of  poems,  more  varied  in  character 
than  had  previously  appeared  from  any  other  native  poet.  It 
included  the  first  part  of  his  i  Prometheus,'  his  longest  and  most 
elaborate  poetical  work,  written  in  the  Spenserian  measure, 
which  later  on,  when  completed  with  the  second  part,  Whittier 
so  warmly  praised  in  his  Hartford  paper.  '  God  pity  the  man,' 
this  fellow  poet  exclaimed,  e  who  does  not  love  the  poetry  of 
Percival !  He  is  a  genius  of  Nature's  making ! ' 

"  In  the  spring  of  1822  he  published  the  first  number  of  his 
1  Clio '  series,  after  the  fashion  of  Irving's  '  Sketch  Book/  and 


IIAUTFORD  AND  NEW  HAVEN.  497 

Dana's  *  Idle  Man/  This  was  brought  out  in  Charleston, 
South  Carolina,  whither  he  had  gone  the  previous  autumn  as 
partner  with  a  lecturer  on  botany.  The  partners  soon  separat- 
ing, Percival  was  without  resources.  Putting  out  his  doctor's 
sign,  he  devoted  himself  to  verse-making  for  the  Courier, 
then  the  first  literary  journal  of  the  South,  while  waiting 
for  patients.  But  very  few  came,  —  indeed,  it  is  said  only 
one  came,  troubled  with  sore  lips,  for  whom  he  prescribed  a 
dose  of  salts,  gratis,  —  for  his  reputation  as  a  poet  had  pre- 
ceded him,  and,  as  he  explained,  <  when  a  person  is  really  ill, 
he  will  not  send  for  a  poet  to  cure  him  : ' "  which  reminded 
Percy  of  Dr.  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes's  early  experience  as  a 
practitioner  with  the  reputation  of  a  wit. 

"  The  second  number  of  <  Clio '  was  brought  out  here  in 
New  Haven  in  the  summer  of  1822.  Two  years  later  Perci- 
val's  collected  poems  in  two  volumes,  upon  which  his  reputa- 
tion as  a  poet  largely  rests,  were  issued  in  New  York  and 
London,  principally  through  the  agency  of  Samuel  G.  Goodrich, 
who  was  one  of  his  steadfast  friends.  The  third  and  last 
<Clio'  appeared  in  1827.  His  last  poetical  volume,  'The 
Dream  of  a  Day,  and  Other  Poems,'  was  published  in  1843. 
His  patriotic  odes  and  campaign  songs,  the  latter  on  the  Whig 
side  and  most  popular  in  the  campaign  of  1840,  are  ranked 
among  the  best  of  their  kind ;  while  his  ballads  long  survived 
his  day.  His  uplifting  lines,  '  0,  it  is  great  for  our  country  to 
die,  where  ranks  are  contending ! '  became  one  of  the  familiar 
and  stirring  battle  songs  of  the  Civil  War. 

"  Percival's  most  important  literary  work  outside  of  poetry 
was  his  scholarly  assistance  on  Webster's  Dictionary.  His 
contributions  to  science  included  his  reports  upon  the  geology 
of  Connecticut  in  1842,  and  the  later  reports  as  state  geologist 
of  Wisconsin,  which  position  he  was  holding  at  the  time  of  his 
death  in  1856." 

A  little  journey  to  "Edgewood,"  the  home  of  Donald  G. 
Mitchell,  was  the  finishing  touch  to  these  pilgrimages.  This 


498 


LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 


lay  to  the  west  of  the  city,  and  southwestward  of  towering 
West  Rock,  in  a  yet  semi-rural  region,  though  not  far  re- 
moved from  the  city's  life.  We  made  the  trip  by  carriage, 
preferring  to  drive  out  rather  than  to  take  the  trolley  car,  that 
we  might  loiter  by  the  way,  if  so  minded,  or  turn  aside 
from  main  thoroughfares  to  explore  inviting  street  openings 
or  seek  picturesque  views.  The  route  we  chose  took  us 

along  shaded 
avenues,  through 
Edgewood  Park, 
across  West  River, 
and  over  the  river 
plain  to  the  old 
"Coddington  road" 
on  which  is  the 
Edgewood  Ridge. 
We  had  with  us  a 
description  of 
Edgewood  which 
Professor  Beers 
gave  some  years 
ago  in  the  Critic, 
and  from  this  we 
easily  recognized 
the  place,  time's 
changes  in  its  as- 
pect having  been 
comparatively 
slight. 

From  the  line  of  evergreen  hedge  along  the  roadway,  sloped 
up  the  grassy  bank  upon  which  the  picturesque  vine-mantled 
house  was  set,  with  shrubs  and  flowers  brightening  the  turf. 
Behind  rose  the  steep  hill,  with  overhanging  woods,  which 
gave  the  place  its  name.  The  house  of  stone  and  wood,  with 
rustic  porch  and  veranda,  high-pitched  roof  and  dormer  win- 


"  EDGEWOOD,"     HOME   OF    DONALD    G.    MITCHELL. 


HARTFORD  AND  NEW  HAVEN.  499 

dmvs,  was  built  by  Mr.  Mitchell  after  his  own  fancy,  in  place 
of  the  old  farmhouse,  —  the  "  grayish-white  farmhouse  "  stand- 
ing behind  "  the  great  purple  spikes  of  lilacs  "  as  depicted  in 
"  My  Farm  at  Edge  wood ,"-  —  which  he  first  occupied  when  he 
came  into  possession  of  the  place,  back  in  the  fifties.  The 
stone  for  the  lower  story  came  mainly  from  old  stone  walls 
found  on  the  farm.  Within  the  house  a  comfortable  spacious- 
ness characterizes  the  rooms.  On  the  south  side  of  the  gener- 
ous entrance  hall  open  double  drawing-rooms,  with  French 
windows  giving  upon  the  veranda,  which  fronts  a  soft  lawn 
framed  in  evergreen  and  other  trees ;  on  the  north  side  of  the 
hall  is  the  library  with  broad  fireplace,  full-stocked  bookshelves 
lining  the  walls,  book-laden  tables,  and  the  genuine  bookish 
atmosphere ;  at  the  rear  is  the  dining-room,  extending  across 
the  house  from  north  to  south,  with  family  portraits  gazing 
down  from  the  walls,  the  windows  looking  out  upon  the  hill- 
side. North  of  the  house  is  a  vegetable  and  old-fashioned 
flower  garden,  with  box-edged  paths,  back  of  a  hemlock  hedge. 
Here  Mr.  Mitchell  has  lived  his  serene  life  of  a  literary 
country  gentleman,  with  occasional  excursions  into  the  world,  for 
nearly  half  a  century.  "  He  was  only  a  few  years  past  thirty 
when  he  purchased  Edgewood,  and  settled  down  to  country 
life,"  I  related,  "  but  he  had  already  made  '  Ik  Marvel's '  repu- 
tation secure.  He  had  published  his  '  Reveries  of  a  Bachelor ' ; 
'  The  Battle  Summer/  being  vivid  notes  from  his  observations 
in  Paris  during  the  revolution  days  of  1848 ;  '  Dream  Life ' ; 
and  *  Fresh  Gleanings  ? ;  —  all  marked  by  a  delicate  touch,  a 
light  fancy,  dashes  of  gentle  satire,  kindly  philosophy,  and 
much  sentiment,  which  captivated  the  leisurely  thoughtful 
reader.  '  Fresh  Gleanings/  treating  in  a  light  vein  of  foreign 
scenes  and  experiences,  was  his  first  book,  brought  out  in  1847, 
after  his  return  from  long  journeyings  in  Europe.  He  had 
gone  abroad  for  his  health,  which  was  delicate  all  through  his 
earlier  years,  and  had  spent  half  a  winter  in  Jersey,  the  other 
half  in  tramping  about  England  visiting  every  county,  and  a 


500 


LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 


year  and  a  half  on  the  Continent.  Meanwhile  he  wrote  letters 
to  the  Albany  Cultivator,  afterward  the  Country  Gentleman, 
which  formed  the  basis  of  his  book.  The  <  Eeveries  of  a 
Bachelor'  had  its  beginnings  in  an  essay  contributed  to  the 
Southern  Literary  Messenger.  This  was  ultimately  expanded 
into  the  little  book  which,  first  published  in  1850,  possessed 
a  fascination  that  none  of  its  numerous  imitators  has  attained. 

Its  revival  a  genera- 
tion after  the  first 
issue  found  its  charm 
undimmed. 

«<Ik  Marvel's' 
second  foreign  trip, 
which  resulted  in  '  The 
Battle  Summer,'  was 
also  taken  in  part  for 
his  health,  which  had 
been  impaired  by  the 
confinement  of  a  New 
York  office  in  which 
he  had  been  studying 
law.  Upon  his  return 
he  began  in  New  York 
under  an  assumed 
name  the  periodical 
publication  of  <  The 
Lorgnette :  or  Studies 
of  the  Town  by  an 
Opera-Goer,'  composed  of  freehand  satirical  sketches  of  men 
and  things  about  the  city,  the  authorship  of  which  piqued 
curiosity,  as  the  matter  provoked  much  comment.  It  was  later 
acknowledged,  when  published  in  book  form  in  1850. 

"  Before  he  came  to  Edgewood  Mr.  Mitchell  had  spent  two 
years  in  Venice  as  the  American  consul  (1853-1854),  during 
which  service  he  collected  material  for  a  contemplated  history 


DONALD   G.   MITCHELL. 


tTARTFORD  AND  NEW  HAVEN.  501 

of  the  Venetian  republic.  This  plan  was  not  carried  out,  but 
the  notes  were  to  some  extent  utilized  in  his  later  works. 
His  airy  Edgewood  books,  —  <  My  Farm  at  Edgewood/  and 
'  Wet  Days  at  Edgewood,'  —  first  appeared  in  the  sixties.  His 
(  Dr.  Johns '  was  also  of  this  period.  The  '  English  Lands, 
Letters,  and  Kings/  and  '  American  Lands  and  Letters,'  the 
reminiscent  works  of  his  latter  years,  have  the  old  charm  and 
touch,  and  have  found  their  place  among  the  lighter  literary 
histories. 

"  In  what  may  perhaps  he  termed  his  specialty  —  landscape 
gardening,  the  refinement  of  farming,  and  the  aesthetic  aspects 
of  rural  life,  —  Mr.  Mitchell's  work  has  been  that  of  a  sort  of 
pioneer.  It  began  in  his  youth,  when,  while  working  on  his 
grandfather's  farm  near  Norwich  after  his  graduation  from 
college,  he  won  a  silver  cup  from  the  New  York  Agricultural 
Society  as  a  prize  for  a  plan  of  farm  buildings.  His  '  Rural 
Studies,'  published  in  1867,  and  reissued  seventeen  years  after 
in  his  « Out  of  Town  Places,  with  Hints  for  their  Improvement/ 
became  a  standard  book  of  its  class.  His  interest  in  art  has 
been  constant,  pen  and  speech  being  employed  in  its  behalf. 
He  has  been  a  member  of  the  council  of  the  Yale  Art  School 
since  its  establishment,  and  has  occasionally  given  lectures 
there.  At  one  time  he  had  a  plan  fully  formed  for  establish- 
ing a  critical  literary  journal  to  be  called  The  Examiner,  but, 
for  some  reason,  it  was  abandoned  ;  in  later  years,  however,  his 
editorial  hand  was  shown  in  the  conduct  of  Hearth  and  Home, 
a  magazine  of  a  more  popular  order.  He  is  a  genuine  New 
Englander,  being  the  son  of  a  long  time  Connecticut  Congrega- 
tional minister,  and  grandson  of  a  Connecticut  chief  justice." 


Back  in  town  we  dined  at  the  New  Haven  House,  after 
which  we  rode  to  the  railway  station,  where  Percy  found  his 
"  traps "  forwarded  from  Boston,  awaiting  his  order ;  and  we 
parted,  he  taking  a  train  for  New  York  whence  he  was  to 


502  LITERARY  PILGRIMAGES. 

journey  homeward  to  the  West,  I  returning  Eastward.  As  we 
were  exchanging  good-byes,  I  expressed  my  regret  that  our 
itinerary  could  not  have  been  so  arranged  as  to  embrace  the 
entire  range  of  New  England  literary  landmarks,  the  homes  of 
the  few  other  writers  whom  we  had  been  obliged  to  pass  by 
unnoticed,  or  places  celebrated  by  them  ;  but  this  would  have 
involved  more  time  than  Percy  had  at  his  disposal,  and  tangled 
our  routes.  My  buoyant  friend,  however,  cheered  me  with  his 
hearty  assurance  that  he  was  going  back  with  a  multitude  of 
pleasant  impressions  and  a  pretty  fair  idea,  he  thought,  of  the 
hand  which  New  England  had  had  in  the  development  of  our 
American  literature. 

"  Come  again,"  I  cried,  as  with  a  final  hand-grasp  he  sprang 
up  the  Pullman  steps ;  "  come  again,  and  perhaps  we'll  con- 
coct another  scheme  of  pilgrimages  into  broader  fields." 

"  Depend  upon  it,  I  shall,"  the  fine  fellow  responded,  and 
the  train  was  off. 


INDEX. 


Abbot  Academy,  Andover,  Mass.,  5. 

Abbot,  Samuel,  a  founder  of  Andover 
Theological  Seminary,  7. 

Abbott,  Gorham  Dummer,  brother  of 
Jacob  and  John  S.  C.  Abbott,  167, 168, 
448. 

Abbott,  Jacob,  student  at  Bowdoin  Col- 
lege, 166,  167,  448 ;  sketch  of,  167-169 ; 
his  "  Rollo  Books,"  166, 168-169  ;  "  Lucy 
Books,"  169;  "Jonas  Books,"  169; 
"  Marco  Paul  Series,"  169  ;  "  Francouia 
Stories,"  166,  169  ;  "  Florence  and  John 
Stories,"  169 ;  "  Harper  Story  Books," 
169  ;  "  Fewacres,"  country  home  of,  169. 

Abbott,  John  Stephen  Cabot,  student  at 
Bowdoin  College,  158,  448 ;  sketch  of, 
167-169  ;  his  "  Young  Christian  Series," 
168  ;  "  Mother  at  Home,"  169  ;  Life  of 
Napoleon  Bonaparte,  167,  169  ;  Life  of 
Napoleon  III.,  169 ;  last  home  of,  at 
Fair  Haven,  170. 

Abbott  Institute,  New  York,  school  of 
the  Abbott  brothers,  168. 

Adams,  Abigail  (Smith),  wife  of  President 
John  Adams,  221 ;  "  Letters  "  of,  254. 

Adams,  Charles  Francis,  1st,  Boston 
home  of,  253 ;  birthplace  of,  254 ;  works 
of,  254. 

Adams,  Hannah,  birthplace  of,  416,  417  ; 
sketch  of,  416-420;  her  pioneer  work, 
"  A  View  of  Religious  Opinions,"  416, 
418,  420 ;  "A  Summary  History  of  New 
England,"  416,  419 ;  "  History  of  the 
Jews,"  417,  419 ;  "  Truth  and  Excellence 
of  the  Christian  Religion,"  419  ;  "  Let- 
ters on  the  Gospels,"  420. 

Adams,  Prof.  Herbert  Baxter,  306. 

Adams,  John,  Diary  of,  quoted,  176 ;  221, 
250,  253,  254,  418,  419  ;  schoolmaster  and 
law  student  in  Worcester,  Mass.,  424. 


Adams,  John  Quincy,  law  student  in 
Newburyport,  Mass.,  71 ;  253. 

Adams,  Phineas,  founder  of  The 
Monthly  Anthology,  220. 

Adams,  Samuel,  144,  419. 

Adams,  Thomas,  father  of  Hannah 
Adams,  417  ;  anecdotes  of,  419. 

Agassiz,  Elizabeth  (Gary),  her  Cambridge 
School,  304 ;  305, 

Agassiz,  Jean  Louis  Rodolphe,  217;  home 
of,  Cambridge,  Mass.,  304;  life  and 
work  of,  304-306;  initial  Lowell  In- 
stitute lectures  of,  1846-47,  305 ;  works 
of :  "  Contributions  to  the  Natural 
History  of  the  United  States,"  "  Meth- 
ods of  Study  in  Natural  History," 
"  Geological  Studies,"  305 ;  death  and 
grave  of,  306 ;  Longfellow's  lines  to, 
305 ;  Lowell's  eulogy  on,  354 ;  403. 

Agassiz  house,  Cambridge,  Mass.,  304, 
305,306. 

Agassiz  School  for  Young  Ladies,  Cam- 
bridge, Mass.,  304. 

Agawam  (Ipswich,  Mass.),  173. 

Albany  Cultivator,  Donald  G.  Mitchell's 
Letters  to,  500. 

Alcott,  Abby  May,  see  Niericker. 

Alcott,  Abigail  (May),  wife  of  A.  B. 
Alcott,  375 ;  sketch  of,  388-389 ;  392, 


Alcott,  Amos  Bronson,  264;  in  Boston, 
267,  301,  394,  398,  402;  his  "Temple 
School,"  301.  394,395;  of  the  Trascen- 
dental  Club,  302,  384,  388  ;  in  Concord, 
Mass.,  375,  384-386,  394,  395,  397-401  ; 
376  ;  sketch  of,  388,  394-402 ;  his  public 
"  Conversations,"  389,  397,  398,  400,  401  ; 
in  Philadelphia,  394  ;  his  experiment  of 
"  Fruitlands,"  396-397,  405,  406;  Dean 
of  the  School  of  Philosophy,  400,  401  ; 


503 


504 


INDEX. 


his  books  :  "  Conversations  with  Chil- 
dren on  the  Gospels,"  301,  394,  395; 
"  Tablets,"  400 ;  "  Concord  Days,"  400 ; 
"Table  Talk,"  400 ;  "  Sonnets  and  Can- 
zonets," 401. 

Alcott,  Anna  Bronson,  see  Pratt. 

Alcott,  Elizabeth,  391,  399. 

Alcott,  Louisa  May,  in  Boston,  264,  267  ; 
in  Concord,  375,  388,  389,  390,  392,  394, 
395,  397-101 ;  sketch  of,  389-394 ;  an 
army  nurse,  391 ;  395,  397,  398,  399,  400, 
401 ;  grave  of,  402  ;  books  of :  "  Flower 
Fables,"  390, 398 ;  "  Hospital  Sketches," 
391;  "Moods,"  391,  392;  "Little 
Women,"  391,  392,  395,  398,  400 ;  "  The 
Old  Fashioned  Girl,"  391;  "Little 
Men,"  391,  392 ;  "  Shawl  Straps,"  392  ; 
"  Work,"  390,  392  ;  "  The  Modern  Meph- 
istopheles,"  392;  "My  Girls,"  392; 
"  Under  the  Lilacs,"  392  ;  "  Jack  and 
Jill,"  392 ;  "  Jo's  Boys,"  392 ;  "  Lulu's 
Library,"  391;  "Transcendental  Wild 
Oats,"  395. 

Alcott  family,  in  Concord,  Mass.,  375, 
387-102;  in  Boston,  267,  389,  398,  at 
"  Fruitlands,"  396-397. 

"  Alcott  House,"  Ham  Common,  England, 
395. 

Aldrich,  Thomas  Bailey,  birthplace  of, 
Portsmouth,  N.H.,  89,93-94,  254  ;  91,  93  ; 
sketch  of,  and  mode  of  work,  94-96,  255, 
256;  editor  of  Every  Saturday,  96; 
editor  of  the  Atlantic  Monthly,  96,  338 ; 
103,  152,  153 ;  Boston  home  of,  Mt. 
Vernon  Street,  254,  276;  255,  256;  the 
"  little  house  in  Pinckney  Street,"  274, 
275,  276 ;  earlier  home  in  Charles  Street, 
276;  Ponkapog,  277,  370;  books  of: 
"The  Bells,  a  Collection  of  Chimes," 
95;  "Daisy's  Necklace,"  95;  "The 
Ballad  of  Babie  Bell,"  94,  95  ;  "  The 
Course  of  True  Love  Never  did  Run 
Smooth,"  95 ;"  Pampinea,"  95  ;  "  Out 
of  his  Head,"  95  ;  "  Poems,"  a  new  col- 
lection, 95 ;  "  The  Story  of  a  Bad  Boy," 
93,  94,  96,  275  ;  "  Marjorie  Daw,"  96 ; 
"  Prudence  Palfrey,"  86 ;  "A  River- 
mouth  Romance,"  96  ;  "  The  Queen  of 
Sheba,"  96 ;  "  The  Stillwater  Tragedy," 
96 ;  "  Mercedes,"  96 ;  "  From  Ponkapog 
to  Pesth,"  96,  277 ;  "  Windham 
Towers,"  96;  "The  Sister's  Tragedy," 


96 ;   "  The  Old  Town  by  the    Sea,"  89, 
103,    275 ;     "  Unguarded     Gates,"    96  ; 
"  Judith  and  Holofernes,"  96 ;  "  Flower 
and  Thorn,"  255. 
Alice  Eliot "  (Sarah  Orne  Jewett),  132. 

Allen,  Rev.  William,  president  of  Bow- 
doin  College,  1819-1839,  birthplace  of, 
Pittsfield,  Mass.,  448 ;  his  biographical 
dictionary,  448. 

Allston,  Ann  (Chauning),  first  wife  of 
Washington  Allston,  261,  296  ;  death  of, 
in  England,  297. 

Allston,  Martha  Remington  (Dana), 
second  wife  of  Washington  Allston, 
296. 

Allston,  Washington,  242,  248,  261 ;  Cam- 
bridge homes  of,  295,  297 ;  sketch  of, 
296-298 ;  his  friendship  with  Washing- 
ton Irving  and  with  Coleridge,  296; 
with  Wordsworth,  Southey,  and  Lamb, 
297  ;  Lowell's  picture  of,  297  ;  death  of, 
298;  his  "The  Sylphs  of  the  Seasons 
and  Other  Poems,"  296,  328 ;  "  Mo- 
naldi,"  297 ;  his  painting  "  Belshazzar's 
Feast,"  298. 

"American  First  Class  Book,  The,"  73- 
486. 

American  Manufacturer,  Whittier  editor 
of,  53. 

American  Monthly  Magazine,^.  P.Willis's 
Boston  periodical,  148,  157. 

"  American  Scholar,  The,"  Emerson's 
Phi  Beta  Kappa  oration  of  1837,  302 
384. 

Amesbury,  Mass.,  37,  43,  48,  55  ;  Whittier 
landmarks  in,  59-64  ;  486. 

Amherst  College,  Jacob  Abbott  tutor, 
afterwards  professor,  at,  167-168. 

"  An  Old  Bachelor,"  nom  de  plume  of 
William  Lloyd  Garrison,  81. 

Andover,  Mass.,  literary  landmarks  of, 
4-21 ;  24, 25,  27. 

Andover  Hill,  4, 34,  167. 

Andover  Theological  Seminary,  5, 7,  8,  9, 
16,  17,  25,  34,  167. 

Androscoggin  River,  155,  165. 

Annuals,  The,  204. 

Anthology  Club,  The,  of  1804,  Boston, 
219  ;  literary  founders  of,  221,  222  ;  419, 

Anthology,  the  Monthly,  see  Monthly 
Anthology. 

Anti  Slavery  Annual,  100. 


INDEX. 


505 


Anti-Slavery  Standard,  The,  Lowell's  con- 
nection with,  348,  349 ;  his  poems  pub- 
lished in,  350. 

Appian  Way,  Cambridge,  Mass.,  319,  321. 

Appledore  Island,  Isles  of  Shoals,  110, 
112,  114, 116,  117,  119,  122,  124. 

Appleton  Chapel,  Harvard  University, 
Longfellow's  funeral  at,  336  ;  Lowell's 
funeral  at,  356. 

Appleton,  Frances  Elizabeth,  see  Long- 
fellow. 

Appleton,  Nathan,  230,  329,  330. 

Appleton,  Gen.  Samuel,  the  Puritan,  175. 

Appleton,  Thomas  Gold,  229, 230,  231,  329. 

Arbella,  the  ship,  207. 

Arlington,  Mass.,  357. 

"  Artemus  Ward,"  see  Browne,  Charles 
Farrar. 

Ash  Street,  Cambridge,  Mass.,  321. 

Aspinwall,  William  H.,  493. 

Astor  Library,  New  York,  425. 

Athenaeum,  Liverpool,  model  for  Boston 
Athenaeum,  223. 

Atlantic  Monthly,  Lowell's  editorship  of, 
60,  69,  125,  353 ;  69,  71 ;  Aldrich's  editor- 
ship of,  96 ;  Fields's  editorship  of,  98 ; 
125,  132,  197,  261,  264,  282;  birthday 
breakfast  of,  tc-  Holmes,  288  ;  289,  294 ; 
Scudder's  editorship  of,  337,  338  ;  494. 

"  Attic  Nights,  The,"  271. 

Bachelor,  Rev.  Stephen,  45-46. 

Bacheler,  Theodate,  45. 

Back  Bay,  Boston,  276,  285,  288. 

Bacon,   Delia,   prophet   of    the    Bacon- 

Shakspere    theory,    grave  of,  491  ;  her 

"Philosophy   of   the    Plays   of    Shak- 

speare  Unfolded,"  491. 
Bacon,  Rev.  Leonard,  grave  of,  491. 
Bailey,  Gamaliel,  editor  of  the  National 

Era,  59,  182. 
Bailey,    Rev.    John,    first     minister    of 

Watertown,  Mass.,  144. 
Bailey,  Sarah  Loring,  23. 
Bancroft,  Rev.  Dr.  Aaron,  father  of 

George  Bancroft,  423 ;  his  scholarship, 

424  ;  his  Life  of  Washington,  424. 
Bancroft,  George,  217,  301 ;  birthplace  of, 

423, 424 ;  grave  of,  424 ;  sketch  of,  424-425  ; 

association  with  foreign  scholars,  425  ; 

Round    Hill    School  at    Northampton, 

Mass.,  425,  441 ;    his  "  History    of   the 


United  States,"  425,  429,  441,  443;  in 
Springfield,  429 ;  443. 

Bar  Harbor,  Me.,  10. 

Barlow,  Joel,  473,  490. 

Barnard,  Elizabeth,  see  Phillips. 

Barnard,  Frederick  Augustus  Porter, 
birthplace  of,  471 ;  487. 

Barnard,  Rev.  Thomas,  early  minister  of 
Andover,  Mass.,  6, 25. 

Bartlet,  William,  a  founder  of  Andover 
Theological  Seminary,  8. 

Bartlett,  John,  356. 

Bartol,  Rev.  Cyrus  Augustus,  198;  summer 
home  of,  at  Manchester-by-the-Sea, 
Mass.,  198-199;  Boston  home  of,  252- 
253 ;  portrait-eulogies  by,  252 ;  essays, 
253 ;  sketch  of,  253;  278 ;  member  of  the 
Transcendental  club,  302. 

Bass  River,  185. 

Bates,  Arlo,  home  of,  252 ;  his  "  The 
Philistines,"  "  The  Puritans,"  and 
"  Under  the  Beech  Tree,"  252. 

Baxter,  Sylvester,  429. 

Bay  Colony,  173,  174. 

Beacon  Hill,  Boston,  219, 242,  247-275 ;  276, 
408. 

Beacon  Street,  Boston,  219,  223,  228,  233, 
235,  276,  285,  290,  408. 

Bedford  Street,  Boston,  239. 

Beecher,  Catherine  Esther,  153;  her 
"Young  Ladies'  Seminary"  at  Hart- 
ford, Conn.,  153,  485. 

Beecher,  Rev.  Charles,  19. 

Beecher,  Rev.  Edward,  158,  160. 

Beecher,  Mrs.  Edward,  159, 160. 

Beecher,  Rev.  Henry  Ward,  432  ;  his  sum- 
mer home  at  Lenox,  Mass.,  459,  482, 
483. 

Beecher,  Rev.  Lyman,  grave  of,  491. 

Beers,  Prof.  Henry  Augustin,  145,  146, 152, 
153,  473,  484,  498. 

Bellamy,  Edward,  home  of,  Chicopee 
Falls,  Mass.,  429  ;  his  "Looking  Back- 
ward," 429,  430,  431  ;  personality  and 
work  of,  429-432 ;  his  The  New  Nation, 
431 ;  "  Equality,"  431 ;  "  Miss  Ludding- 
ton's  Secret,"  431 ;  "  Dr.  Hiedenhoff's 
Process,"  431;  "  The  Blindman's  World," 
431  ;  "  The  Duke  of  Stockbridge,"  431. 

Bellamy,  Dr.  Joseph,  429. 

Bellamy,  Rev.  Rufus  K.,  father  of  Edward 
Bellamy,  429. 


506 


INDEX. 


Benjamin,  Park,  148,  231 ;  editorship  of 
The  mw  World,  New  York,  329. 

Bennington,  Vt.,  Wm.  Lloyd  Garrison  an 
editor  in,  81. 

Berkeley  Street,  Cambridge,  Mass.,  322. 

Berkshire  Athenaeum,  Pittsfield,  Mass., 
448. 

Berkshire  Hills,  Mass.,  205,  431,  446,  451, 
452,  454,  457,  458,  471. 

Beverly,  Mass.,  184 ;  literary  landmarks 
of,  185-198. 

"  Beverly-by-the-Depot,"  198. 

Beverly  Bridge,  198,  200  ;  scene  of  "  The 
Toll  Gatherer's  Day,"  200. 

Beverly  Farms,  Mass.,  198,  199. 

Beverly  Historical  Society,  187. 

Bigelow,  George  Tyler,  class  of  1829, 
Harvard,  285. 

"  Blackboard,"  the  pirate,  at  Isles  of 
Shoals,  118. 

Elaine,  James  Gillespie,  183. 

Bliss,  Dr.  Daniel,  early  minister  of  Con- 
cord, Mass.,  180. 

Bliss,  Phebe,  see  Emerson. 

Blythe,  Capt.  Samuel,  of  the  British  brig 
"  Boxer,"  War  of  1812,  140. 

Boston  Athenaeum,  219,  220,  221,  223,  271, 
419. 

Boston  Daily  Advertiser,  283, 291. 

Boston  Latin  School,  N.  P.  Willis  a  pupil 
in,  147 ;  Edward  Everett  Hale,  a  pupil 
and  a  teacher  in,  290. 

Boston,  literary  landmarks  of,  219-294. 

Boston  Miscellany,  7%e,374. 

Boston  Post,  197. 

Boston  Public  Library,  George  Ticknor's 
library  in,  228  ;  271,  290. 

Boston  Radical  Club,  253. 

Boston  Recorder,  founded  by  Nathaniel 
Willis,  144 ;  N.  P.  Willis's  poems  in,  147. 

Boston  Tea  Party,  144. 

Bowdoin  College,  9,  17,  136,  137;  Long- 
fellow at,  142,  155, 157-158, 161,  162 ;  Haw- 
thorne at,  142, 155,  162  ;  163,  164,  165 ;  the 
Abbott  brothers  at,  166-167 ;  Cyrus  A. 
Bartol  at,  253 ;  448. 

Bowles,  Samuel,  editorship  of  the  Spring- 
field Republican,  427  ;  grave  of,  429. 

Bow  Street  Theatre,  the  old,  Portsmouth, 
N.H.,  106. 

Boylston  Place,  Boston,  288. 

Bradford,  George,  of  Concord,  Mass.,  385. 


Bradstreet,  Anne,  4,  6,  21 ;  home  of,  in 
North  Andover,  Mass.,  22-25,  40,  41; 
sketch  of,  26-32  ;  works  of,  in  Prose  and 
Verse,  23,  30,  31,  32 ;  grave  of,  34 ;  in 
Ipswich,  Mass.,  173,  175,  178. 

Bradstreet,  Dudley,  sketch  of,  24-25. 

Bradstreet,  Governor  Simon,  23,  24,  26,  27, 
32,  175;  grave  of,  in  Salem,  210;  site  of 
house  of,  215. 

Bradstreet,  Rev.  Simon,  30. 

Bradstreet  homestead,  the  ancient,  North 
Andover,  Mass.,  22,23,  25,  31. 

Brainard,  John  Gardner  Calkins,  472; 
sketch  of,  485. 

Braintree,  Mass.,  71. 

Brattle  Square  Church,  Boston,  222 ;  John 
G.  Palfrey  and  Edward  Everett,  minis- 
ters of,  312 ;  Joseph  S.  Buckminster  min- 
ister of,  419. 

Brattle  Street,  Cambridge,  Mass.,  321,  332, 
337,  340 ;  formerly  the  "  Old  Road,"  342. 

Brazil,  "  Hillard's  Readers  "  in  schools 
of,  265. 

Brewer,  Emelia  (Field),  463. 

Bridge,  Commodore  Horatio,  158;  his 
"Personal  Recollections  of  Haw- 
thorne," 164 ;  the  "  Snow  Image  "  dedi- 
cated to,  164  ;  165. 

Briggs,  Charles  Frederick,  344,  350,  351. 

"  Brightwood,"  J.  G.  Holland's  later 
Springfield  home,  428. 

Brock,  Rev.  John,  early  missionary  at 
Isles  of  Shoals,  119. 

Brocklebank,  Capt.  Samuel,  of  Rowley, 
Mass.,  in  the  Sudbury  Fight,  King 
Philip's  War,  364,  369. 

Brook  Farm,  Hawthorne  at,  266;  294; 
George  Ripley,  founder  of,  302. 

Brooks,  Rev.  Charles  Timothy,  200;  sketch 
of,  200-201. 

Brooks,  Rev.  Edward,  244. 

Brooks,  Mary  Ann  (Phillips),  mother  of 
Phillips  Brooks,  7. 

Brooks,  Rev.  Phillips,?;  his  country 
home  in  the  Phillips  Manse,  North 
Andover,  Mass.,  22,  34. 

Brooks,  William  Gray,  father  of  Rev. 
Phillips  Brooks,  7. 

Brown,  Alice,  275 ;  her  "  The  Day  of  his 
Youth,"  275  ;  ••  Meadow  Grass,"  275. 

Brown,  J.  Appleton,  126. 

Brown,  John  of  Osawatomie,  F.  B.  San- 


INDEX. 


507 


bora's  enlistment  in  the  cause  of,  376- 
377  ;  Alcott's  interest  in,  399  ;  daughters 
of,  with  the  Alcotts  in  Concord,  Mass., 
400. 

Brown,  Moses,  a  founder  of  Andover 
Theological  Seminary,  8. 

Brown  University,  George  D.  Prentice  at, 
486. 

Browne,  Charles  Farrar  ("Artemus 
Ward"),  102;  sketch  of,  170-172;  "Ar- 
temus Ward:  His  Book,"  171;  "The 
Babes  in  the  Woods,"  171  ;  "  Among  the 
Mormons,"  171 ;  "  Sixty  Minutes  in 
Africa,"  171 ;  "  Great  Moral  Show,"  171. 

Brunswick,  Maine,  17,  18,  155,  160,  162, 163, 
170. 

Bryant,  Frances  (Fairchild),  wife  of  W.  C. 
Bryant,  464. 

Bryant,  Dr.  Peter,  father  of  W.  C. 
Bryant,  249,  466,  467. 

Bryant,  Sally  (Snell),  mother  of  W.  C. 
Bryant,  466,  467* 

Bryant,  William  Cullen,  99,  142 ;  a  con- 
tributor to  Dana's  "  The  Idle  Man,"  247, 
248;  story  of  "  Thanatopsis,"  248-250, 
467-468  ;  of  "  The  Fragment,"  249  ;  "  The 
Ages,"  Phi  Beta  Kappa  poem,  1821,  249  ; 
250  ;  birthplace  of,  Cummington,  Mass., 
446,  448,  4«!»5 -4I5U  ;  459,  460;  in  Great 
Barrington,  Mass.,  464,  465;  scenes  of 
his  favorite  poems,  465,  466,  468  ;  his  first 
published  poem,  467  ;  his  youthful  sat- 
ire, "  The  Embargo,"  467  ;  story  of  "  To 
a  Waterfowl,"  468  ;  assistant  editor  of 
the  New  York  Review,  469  ;  editor  of  the 
New  York  Evening  Post,  469-470;  his 
second  collection  of  poems,  470;  trans- 
lation of  the  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey,  470 ; 
his  death  and  burial  place,  470  ;  as  pic- 
tured by  Hawthorne,  470 ;  481. 

Buckingham  Street,  Cambridge,  Mass., 
337.  . 

Buckingham's  Boston  Monthly,  see  New 
England  Magazine,  Buckingham's. 

Buckminster,  the  Rev.  Joseph  of  Ports- 
mouth, N.H.,  222. 

Buckminster,  Rev.  Joseph  Stevens,  of  the 
Anthology  Club  of  1804,  222,  419. 

"  Bulfinch  Front,"  State  House,  Boston, 
102. 

Bulkeley,  Rev.  Peter,  first  minister  of 
Concord,  Mass.,  179. 


Bull,  Ole,  125  ;  the  "  Musician  "  in  "  Tales 
of  a  Wayside  Inn,"  368. 

Bunker  Hill,  Battle  of,  234, 341;  285, 286, 314. 

Burnett,  Mabel  (Lowell),  352. 

Burr,  President  Aaron,  of  Princeton  Col- 
lege, 438,  439. 

Burr,  Aaron,  178,  439. 

Burroughs,  John,  191. 

Burroughs,  Capt.  William,  of  the  U.  S. 
brig  "  Enterprise,"  War  of  1812,  140. 

Bushnell,  Rev.  Horace,  a  student  at  Yale, 
489. 

Byfield,  Mass.,  71,  86. 

Bynner,  Edwin  Lassetter,  sketch  of,  293- 
294  ;  his  "  Agnes  Surriage,"  293,  294  ;  his 
other  books  :  "  Penelope's  Suitors," 
"Nimport,"  "The  Tritons,"  "The 
Begum's  Daughter,"  and  "  Zachary 
Phips,"  294. 

Cable,  George  Washington,  "Tarry- 
awhile,"  Northampton  home  of,  443, 
444  ;  sketch  of,  444-445  ;  his  books :  "  Old 
Creole  Days,"  "  The  Grandissimes," 
"Madame  Delphine,"  "Dr.  Sevier," 
"  History  of  New  Orleans,"  "  The  Si- 
lent South,"  "  John  March,  Southern- 
er," 445. 

Cabot,  James  Elliot,  biographer  of  Emer- 
son, 180. 

Cambridge,  Mass.,  literary  landmarks  of, 
295-356. 

Cambridge  Common,  316,  319. 

Cambridge  Port  Private  Grammar  School , 
Holmes  and  Margaret  Fuller  pupils  in, 
296. 

Campbell,  Margaret  Wade,  see  Deland. 

"Canoe  Meadow,"  Holmes's  ancestral 
country  seat,  Pittsfield,  Mass.,  450. 

Carleton,  James  H.,  38. 

Carlyle,  Jane,  381. 

Carlyle,  Thomas,  correspondence  of,  with 
Emerson,  311 ;  Emerson's  friendship 
with,  380-381. 

Carpet  Bag,  The,  102, 170. 

Carroll,  Prof.  Charles  C.,  328. 

Carroll,  Rt.  Rev.  John,  D.D.,  419. 

Gary,  Alice,  contributor  to  The  National 
Era,  59. 

Gary,  Elizabeth,  see  Agassiz. 

Gary,  Phoebe,  contributor  to  The  National 


508 


INDEX. 


Catholic  World,  The,  270 ;  Father  Hecker 
editor  of,  397. 

Cedar  Island,  Isles  of  Shoals,  110, 114. 

Central  Court,  Boston,  290. 

Century  Magazine,  69,  428. 

Chain-bridge,  Newburyport,  Mass.,  65. 

Channing,  Edward  Tyrrel,  an  editor  of 
the  North  American  Review,  249. 

Channing,  Ellen  Kilshaw  (Fuller),  wife 
of  W.  E.  Channing,  the  poet,  371. 

Channing,  Mary  Elizabeth,  see  Higginson. 

Channing,  William  Ellery,  32,  137,  217, 
250;  Boston  home  of,  256,  258,  259; 
personality  and  methods  of  work,  258- 
259 ;  sketch  of,  258-261 ;  285,  296,  301,  371. 

Channing,  William  Ellery,  2d,  the  poet, 
home  of,  Concord,  Mass.,  371,  376 ;  374, 
385,399. 

Channing,  William  Henry,  biographer  of 
William  Ellery  Channing,  258 ;  class  of 
1829,  Harvard,  284. 

Chapel  Street,  New  Haven,  Conn.,  495. 

Charles  River,  Mass.,  278,285,  297,  326,327, 
332. 

Charles  Street,  Boston,  276,  285. 

Charleston  (S.C.)  Courier,  James  G.  Perci- 
val's  poems  in,  497. 

Charter  Oak,  Hartford,  Conn.,  487. 

Charter-Street  Burying-ground,  Salem, 
Mass.,  206;  Hawthorne's  sketches  of, 
209-210 ;  222. 

Cheever,  Ezekiel,  the  Puritan  school- 
master, house  of,  in  Ipswich,  Mass.,  178. 

Cheever,  Rev.  Dr.  George  Barrell,  158 ;  his 
"  Deacon  Giles's  Distillery,"  158. 

Cherry  Street,  Cambridge,  Mass.,  299. 

Chestnut  Street,  Boston,  228,  239,  240,  242, 
247,  248,  252,  253,  259. 

Chicopee  Falls,  Mass.,  429. 

Child,  Prof.  Francis  James,  home  and 
study  of,  Cambridge,  307-309  ;  his  "  Eng- 
lish and  Scottish  Popular  Ballads,"  308, 
310  ;  sketch  of,  309-310 ;  British  Poets 
edited  by,  310 ;  352  ;  anecdote  of  Lowell 
and,  354 ;  356. 

Child,  Lydia  Maria,  100,  301 ;  her  Juvenile 
Miscellany,  457. 

"  Children's  Chair,"    gift    of   Cambridge 

school  children  to  Longfellow,  332. 
Choate  Bridge,  Ipswich,  Mass.,  179. 
Christ  Church,  Cambridge,  Mass.,  319. 
Christ  Church,  Hartford,  Conn.,  484. 


Civil  War,  John  S.  C.  Abbott's  history  of, 
169 ;  232,  254,  268,  289,  292  ;  T.  W.  Higgin- 
son's  service  in,  318 ;  319,  351,  353,  360, 
378,  391,  445,  475,  482,  494,  497. 

Clarke,  Rev.  James  Freeman,  217,  265, 266  ; 
class  of  1829,  Harvard,  284;  288,  289; 
member  of  the  Transcendental  Club, 
302;  403. 

Cleav eland,  P,rof .  Parker,  of  Bowdoin  Col- 
lege, 164. 

Clemens,  Samuel  Langhorne  ("Mark 
Twain  "),  472 ;  second  Hartford  home 
of,  473-474  ;  sketch  of,  474-478 ;  his  "  In- 
nocents Abroad,"  474,  476 ;  other  books 
of:  "The  Celebrated  Jumping  Frog  of 
Calaveras,"  "  Roughing  It,"  "  The  Gild- 
ed Age,"  "The  Adventures  of  Tom 
Sawyer,""  The  Prince  and  the  Pauper,' 
"  Personal  Recollections  of  Joan  of 
Arc,"  "  Pudd'nhead  Wilson,"  "  The 
Adventures  of  Huckleberry  Finn,"  "  A 
Connecticut  Yankee  in  King  Arthur's 
Court,"  476. 

Cleveland,  Henry  Russell,  one  of  the 
"  Five  of  Clubs,"  325. 

Cleveland  Plaindealer,  171. 

Cobb,  Sylvanus,  Jr.,  102. 

Cobbett,  Rev.  Thomas,  the  Puritan  minis- 
ter, of  Ipswich,  Mass.,  174,  177. 

Coffin,  Joshua,  Whittier's  schoolmaster, 
49,  72;  homestead  of,  Newburyport, 
Mass.,  86. 

Cogswell,  Dr.  Joseph  Green,  425,  441. 

Coleridge,  Samuel  Taylor,  247  ;  Washing- 
ton Allston's  friendship  with,  296,  297  ; 
his  portrait  of,  297  ;  330,  380. 

College  Library,  Harvard  University,  306, 
329. 

Columbia  University,  193,  198,  471. 

Commonwealth  The,  F.  B.  Sanborn's  edi- 
torship of,  378. 

Concord,  Mass.,  literary  landmarks  of, 
370-414. 

Concord  Academy,  Concord,  Mass.,  372. 

Concord  Athenaeum,  Concord,  Mass., 
382. 

Concord  Fight,  the,  134,  180,  367,  407,  410. 

Concord  Lyceum,  Concord,  Mass.,  372. 

Concord  River,  395. 

Concord  Sohool  of  Philosophy,  378,  388 ; 
sketch  of ,  400  ;  Louisa  M.  Alcott's  hu- 
morous description  of,  401. 


INDEX. 


509 


Concord  Social  Circle,  Emerson's  interest 
in,  382. 

Congress,  U.S.,  54, 55  ;  Webster  in,  from 
Portsmouth,  N.H.,  105;  Stephen  Long- 
fellow in,  from  Portland,  Me.,  137 ; 
Timothy  Fuller  in,  300 ;  John  G.  Pal- 
frey in,  312 ;  441 ;  James  Hillhouse  in, 
492. 

Connecticut  Mirror,  J.  G.  C.  Brainard 
editor  of,  485. 

Connecticut  River,  245,  266,  478. 

Connecticut  Valley,  the,  415,  425-145,  485. 

"  Constitution,"  U.  S.  frigate,  141,  283. 

Continental  Congress,  7. 

Conway,  Moncure  Daniel,  biographer  of 
Hawthorne,  205. 

Coolidge,  John  Templeman,  Jr.,  109. 

Cooper,  James  Fenimore,  99 ;  a  student  at 
Yale,  489. 

Copley  Sqtfare,  Boston,  290. 

Corsair,  The,  N.  P.  Willis's  connection 
with,  151. 

Cotton,  Rev.  John,  the  Puritan  minister, 
of  Boston,  27,  244. 

Cotton,  Rev.  Rowland,  son  of  Rev.  John 
Cotton,  244, 

Council  of  Safety,  Massachusetts  Bay 
Colony,  25. 

Country  Brook,  Haverhill,  Mass.,  38,  43. 

Courier-Journal,  Louisville,  Ky.,  53,  486. 

Craigie,  Andrew,  apothecary  general  to 
the  American  Army  of  the  Revolution, 
326;  of  the  Craigie  house,  Cambridge, 
Mass.,  326-327. 

Craigie,  Madam,  in  the  Craigie  house, 
Cambridge,  Mass.,  325,  326 ;  sketch  and 
anecdotes  of,  326-327 ;  death  of,  329. 

Craigie  house,  Cambridge,  Mass.,  see  Long- 
fellow (Craigie)  house. 

Craigie  Street,  Cambridge,  Mass.,  322,  327, 
337. 

Cranch,  Christopher  Pearse,  356. 

Crayon,  The,  New  York,  187,  188 

Cummins,  Maria,  "The  Lamplighter," 
457 ;  pupil  at  Mrs.  Sedgwick's  school  in 
Lenox,  Mass.,  457. 

Cummingtou,  Mass.,  birthplace  of  William 
Cullen  Bryant,  446,  448,  459  ;  465  ;  the 
poet's  early  life  here,  466-469  ;  481. 

Curtis,  Judge  Benjamin  Robbins,  225; 
class  of  1829,  Harvard,  285. 

Curtis,  Burrill,  385, 


Curtis,  George  Ticknor,  225. 

Curtis,  George  William,  99,  311,  356,  384  ; 
his  sketch  of  a  "  Monday  evening"  at 
Emerson's  quoted,  385-386;  387,  413,494, 
495. 

Clashing,  Caleb,  54  ;  his  "  Reminiscences 
of  Spain,"  72  ;  77  ;  house  of,  86. 

Cushman,  Charlotte,  pupil  at  Mrs.  Sedg- 
wick's school,  in  Lenox,  Mass.,  467. 

Custom  House,  Boston,  Matthew  Whit- 
tier  in,  47  ;  Wilson  Flagg  in,  192  ;  Haw- 
thorne in,  414,  441 ;  Bancroft  collector 
in,  441. 

Custom  House,  New  York,  Herman  Mel- 
ville in,  456. 

Custom  House,  Salem,  Mass.,  202 ;  Haw- 
thorne's office  in,  206 ;  208,  212,  414. 

Dana,  Edmund  Trowbridge,  222. 

Dana,  Chief  Justice  Francis,  248,  250. 

Dana,  James  Dwight,  tomb  of,  492. 

Dana,  Martha  Remington,  see  Allston. 

Dana,  Richard,  250. 

Dana,  Richard  Henry,  the  poet,  32,  153  ; 
"  old  gray  mansion  "  of,  at  Manchester, 
Mass.,  198,  250 ;  217,  222 ;  Boston  home 
of,  247-248  ;  sketch  of,  247-250 ;  his  "  The 
Idle  Man,"  247,  248,  497 ;  "  The  Buc- 
caneer," 247,  248 ;  his  Shaksperean  lec- 
tures, 248;  editorship  of  the  North 
American  Review,  249  ;  296,  468,  497. 

Dana,  Richard  Henry,  jr.,  his  "Two 
Years  Before  the  Mast,"  247,  250-251, 
454  ;  "  The  Seaman's  Friend,"  251 ;  "  To 
Cuba  and  Back."  251 ;  defends  fugitive 
slaves,  251  ;  grave  of,  in  Rome,  252  ;  456. 

Dana  mansion,  the  old,  Cambridge,  Mass., 
299. 

Dante  Club,  The,  meeting  in  Longfellow's 
house,  335. 

Dartmouth  College,  20,  224  ;  George  Tick- 
nor a  student  at,  225  ;  423  ;  founder  of, 
440. 

Day,  Jeremiah,  president  of  vYale  College, 
1817-1846,  492. 

De  Normandie,  Rev.  James,  126. 

Deer  Island,  Newburyport,  Mass.,  66,  67, 
68,  69,  70. 

Deer-field,  Mass.,  71. 

Deering,  Nathaniel,  142 ;  his  tragedies, 
"  Cantbasset,"  and  "  Bozzaris,"  142. 

Deeriug  Woods,  139, 


510 


INDEX. 


Deland.Margaret,  home  of,  261-262  ;  sketch 
of,  263-264;  her  "  John  Ward  Preacher," 
261,  264 ;  other  books  :  "  The  Old  Gar- 
den and  Other  Verses,"  "Sidney," 
"  Philip  and  His  Wife,"  264. 

Democratic  Journal,  The,  59. 

Democratic  Review,  414. 

Denison,  Maj.  Gen.  Daniel,  175. 

Denison,  Patience  (Dudley),  175. 

Detroit  Free  Press,  The,  102. 

Dewey,  Rev.  Orville,  458  ;  birthplace  of, 

471. 

Dial,  The,  Margaret  Fuller  first  editor  of, 
301 ;  some  of  its  contributors,  302,  374  ; 
Emerson's  editorship  of,  302,  384. 

Diary  of  John  Adams,  176,  253. 

Dickens,  Charles,  189 ;  original  manu- 
scripts of,  in  Fields's  Library,  278  ;  a 
guest  of  Jas.  T.  Fields,  278 ;  at  Long- 
fellow's rooms,  330 ;  338. 

Dodge,  Mary  Abigail  ("  Gail  Hamilton  "), 
home  of,  181,  184  ;  sketch  of,  181-183  ;  her 
books  :  "  Country  Living  and  Country 
Thinking,"  "  Gala  Days,"  "  A  New  At- 
mosphere," 182;  "Whittier's  "Lines" 
011, 182  ;  358. 

Dorchester  Heights,  Boston,  312. 

Downing,  Emanuel,  32. 

Downing,  Sir  George,  34. 

Duck  Island,  Isles  of  Shoals,  110,  114, 116, 
119. 

Dudley,  Mercy,  29,  175. 

Dudley,  Governor  Thomas,  26,  27,  175. 

Dunbar,  Cynthia,  see  Thoreau. 

Dunlap,  Frances,  see  Lowell. 

Dwight,  Sereno  Edwards,  biographer  of 
Jonathan  Edwards,  440. 

Dwight,  Theodore,  440,  473. 

Dwight,  Theodore,  son  of  above,  440. 

Dwight,  Timothy,  president  Yale  College, 
1797-1817,  sketch  of,  439-440 ;  his  Revolu- 
tionary song  "  Columbia,"  and  "  Con- 
quest of  Canaan,"  439 ;  Student  at  Yale 
College,  490. 

"Earl  of  Halifax"   tavern,  Ports- 
mouth, N.H.,  92,  93. 
East  Haverhill,  Mass.,  36. 
East  India  merchants,  old  time,  317. 
East  Meadow  Brook,  Haverhill,  Mass. ,43. 
East  Parish,  Haverhill,  Mass.,  36,  44. 
Eastern  Argus,  144. 


Easton,  Nicholas,  175. 

"  Edgewood,"  home  of  Donald  G.  Mitchell, 
New  Haven,  Conn.,  497,  498,^00. 

Edrehi,  Israel,  the  "  Spanish  Jew,"  in 
the  "  Tales  of  a  Wayside  Inn,"  367. 

Edwards,  Rev.  Jonathan,  site  of  home  of, 
Northhampton,  Mass.,  433  ;  memorial  to, 
433 ;  sketch  of,  434-440,  460-461 ;  tribute 
of,  to  Sarah  Pierrepont,  435  ;"  A  Narra- 
tive of  Surprising  Conversions"  by,  436 ; 
"  Essays  on  the  Freedom  of  the  Will," 
438,  461 ;  manuscript  letter  of,  440  ; 
"  Edwards  Hall,"  Stockbridge  home  of, 
460-461 ;  anecdote  of,  461 ;  other  books  of, 
written  at  Stockbridge  :  "  God's  End  in 
Creation,*'  and  "  The  Nature  of  Vir- 
tue, "  461;  tablet  to,  463  ;  student  at  Yale 
College,  490. 

Edwards,  Jonathan,  2d,  second  president 
of  Union  College,  439. 

Edwards,  Judge  Pierrepont,  439. 

Edwards,  Sarah  (Pierrepont),  wife  of  Jona- 
than Edwards,  435,  436;  death  of, 
439. 

Edwards,  Rev.  Timothy,  father  of  Jona- 
than Edwards,  434,  439. 

Eliot,  Anna,  see  Ticknor. 

Eliot,  Charles  William,  president  of  Har- 
vard University,  356. 

Eliot,  Samuel,  227. 

Eliot  Congregational  Church,  Roxbury, 
Mass.,  Jacob  Abbott  pastor  of,  168. 

"  Ellen  Louise  "  (Louise  Chandler  Moul- 
ton),  102. 

Ellery  Street,  Cambridge,  Mass.,  299. 

Ellery,  William,  of  Rhode  Island,  250. 

Elm  Street,  Concord,  Mass.,  376. 

"  Elmwood,"  Cambridge  Mass.,  83  ;  sketch 
of,  340-344 ;  352  ;  Lowell's  love  of,  356 ; 
Lowell  pictured  among  his  books  here, 
356-357. 

Embargo,  The,  134, 317  ;  Bryant's  youthful 
satire  on,  467. 

Emerson,  Charles,  brother  of  Ralph  Waldo 
Emerson,  409. 

Emerson,  Edward,  of  Newbury,  Mass., 
179-180. 

Emerson,  Edward,  brother  of  R.  W.  Emer- 
son, student  in  Harvard  College,  409  ;  his 
school,  in  which  R.  W.  Emerson  taught, 
409. 

Emerson,    Dr.    Edward,    son    of    R.    Wr 


INDEX. 


511 


Emerson,  379;  his  "Emerson  at  Con- 
cord," 379,  383,  386. 

Emerson,  Elizabeth  (Bulkeley),  179. 

Emerson,  Ellen,  daughter  of  R.  \V.  Emer- 
son, 383,  390. 

Emerson,  Ellen  (Tucker),  first  wife  of 
R.  W.  Emerson,  409. 

Emerson,  Rev.  Joseph,  son  of  Thomas 
Emerson  the  emigrant,  pioneer  minister 
of  Meudon,  Mass.,  179. 

Emerson,  Rev.  Joseph,  early  minister  of 
Maiden,  Mass.,  180. 

Emerson,  Lydia  (Jackson),  second  wife  of 
R.  W.  Emerson,  301,  380. 

Emerson,  Mary  (Moody),  wife  of  Rev. 
Joseph  Emerson,  of  Maiden,  Mass., 
180. 

Emerson,  Mary,  R.  W.  Emerson's  "  Aunt 
Mary,"  372. 

Emerson,  Phoebe  (Bliss),  grandmother  of 
R.  W.  Emerson,  180;  married  to  Ezra 
Ripley,  407 ;  408 ;  witness  of  the  Concord 
Fight,  410,  412. 

Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo,  minister  in  Bos- 
ton, 26  ;  147 ;  "  Parnassus,"  150,  386 ;  174  ; 
ancestry  of,  179-181 ;  198,  217,  220,  253, 
254,  300,  301 ;  in  the  Transcendental 
movement,  302,  384 ;  association  with 
The  Dial,  302,  384 ;  the  Emerson-Carlyle 
Correspondence,  311 ;  318,  320,  330.  372, 
373,374, 376 ;  house  of,  in  Concord,  Mass., 
378-379,  381,  383 ;  sketch  of,  380-387,  407- 
410;  home  of,  in  the  "  Old  Manse,"  380, 
385,  407-410  ;  "  Nature,"  380,  383,  410 ; 
intimacy  of,  with  Carlyle,  380-381 ;  intro- 
duction of  Carlyle's  works  to  America, 
381 ;  the  "  Battle  Monument "  hymn, 
384 ;  Phi  Beta  Kappa  oration  of,  1837, 
384;  "Essays,"  second  book  of,  384; 
other  books  of :  "  Representative  Men," 
"  English  Traits,"  "  Conduct  of  Life," 
"  May  Day,"  "  Society  and  Solitude," 
"  Letters  and  Social  Aims,"  "  Lectures 
and  Biographical  Sketches,"  "Miscel- 
lanies," 386;  personal  appearance  of, 
386-387;  388, 390, 394, 395,  396,  398,  399,  403, 
411,413,414. 

Emerson,  Rebecca  (Waldo),  wife  of 
Edward  Emerson,  of  Newbury,  180. 

Emerson,  Ruth  (Haskins),  mother  of 
R.  W.  Emerson,  181,  407, 408. 

Emerson,  Thomas,  the  emigrant,  of  Ips- 


wich, Mass.,  first  American  ancestor  of 
R.  W.  Emerson,  174,  179. 

Emerson,  Rev.William,  of  Concord,  Mass., 
grandfather  of  R.  W.  Emerson,  180,  407. 

Emerson,  Rev.  William,  2d,  father  of 
R.  W.  Emerson,  minister  in  Harvard, 
Mass.,  180;  minister  of  First  Church, 
Boston,  181 ;  member  of  the  Anthology 
Club  of  1804,  220,  221;  254,  396,  407. 

Emerson,  William,  brother  of  R.  W. 
Emerson,  372;  his  school  for  girls  in 
which  R.  W.  Emerson  taught,  383,  409. 

Endicott,  Governor  John,  175,  177. 

"  Enterprise,"  U.  S.  brig,  140. 

Essex  Bridge,  see  Beverly  Bridge. 

Essex  County,  Mass.,  173. 

Essex  Institute,  Salem,  Mass.,  212. 

Essex  Street,  old,  Boston,  225,  230. 

"  Ethan  Spike  of  Hornby,"  See  Whittier, 
Matthew  F. 

Evening  Mirror,  New  York,  95,  152. 

Evening  Post,  New  York,  Bryant's  editor- 
ship of,  469-470. 

Everett,  Alexander,  226. 

Everett,  Edward,  222,  226,  291,  312,  316. 

Everett,  Rev.  Oliver,  222. 

Everett,  William,  home  of,  in  Cambridge, 
Mass.,  316. 

Every  Saturday,  96. 


Fair-child,  Prances,  see  Bryant. 

Fairfield  Street,  Boston,  289. 

••  Fairfields,"  Wenham,  Mass.,  184. 

"  Fanny  Fern  "  (Sara  Payson  Willis),  see 

Parton. 
Farnum,  Charles  Haight,  biographer  of 

Parkman,  241. 
Farnham,  Martha,  early   friend   of   the 

Garrison  family,  79. 
Federal-Street   Church,  Boston,  Win.  E. 

Channing  minister  of,  260. 
"Fellows,    Ma'am,"    Longfellow's     first 

schoolmistress,  137. 
Felton,  Cornelius  Conway,  birthplace  of, 

72  ;  in  Cambridge,  325 ;  one  of  the  "  Five 

of  Clubs,"  325  ;  326,  330. 
"Fewacres,"    Farmington,  Me.,  country 

home  of  Jacob  Abbott,  169. 
Field,  Cyrus  West,  birthplace  of,  463. 
Field,  Rev.  David  Dudley,  of  Stockbridge, 

Mass.,  tablet  to,  463. 


512 


INDEX. 


Field,  David  Dudley,  the  jurist,  in  Stock- 
bridge,  Mass.,  463. 

Field,  Emelia,  see  Brewer. 

Field,  Rev.  Henry  Martin,  birthplace  of, 
463. 

Field,  Judge  Stephen  Johnson,  463. 

Fields,  Annie  (Adams),  123, 125,  126,  277. 

Fields,  James  Thomas,  15,  60,  69,  70,  89  ; 
sketch  of,  97-99 ;  books  of  :  "  Yesterdays 
with  Authors,"  "  Underbrush,"  "  The 
Family  Library  of  British  Poetry,"  98 ; 
"Ballads  and  other  Verses,"  99;  102, 
109,  166,  199  ;  "  Thunderbolt  Hill,"  sum- 
mer home  of,  199;  215,  271;  Boston 
home  of,  276,  277-278 ;  281,  365. 

First  Church,  Boston,  181. 

First  Church,  Ipswich,  Mass.,  176. 

First  Church,  of  New  Haven,  Rev.  Leon- 
ard Bacon  minister  of,  491. 

First  Church,  Newburyport,  Mass.,  68,  73, 
83. 

First  Congregational  Church,  Northamp- 
ton, Mass.,  Jonathan  Edwards  tablet 
in,  433 ;  434. 

First  Parish  Church,  Cambridge,  Rev. 
Abiel  Holmes's  ministry  in,  316. 

First  South  Carolina  Volunteers,  Col. 
Higginson's  regiment  of  freed  slaves  in 
the  Civil  War,  318. 

Fiske,  John  (Edmund  Fiske  Green),  239  ; 
homes  of,  in  Cambridge,  321, 322 ;  sketch 
of,  322-324;  books  of:  "Outlines  of 
Cosmic  Philosophy,"  "  The  Unseen 
World,"  "  Darwinism,"  "  Excursions  of 
an  Evolutionist,"  and  "The  Destiny 
of  Man,"  323 ;  "  The  Idea  of  God," 
"  The  Doctrine  of  Evolution,"  "'  Through 
Nature  to  God,"  "  The  Critical  Period 
of  American  History,"  "The  Begin- 
nings of  New  England,"  "  The  Ameri- 
can Revolution,"  "The  Discovery  of 
America,"  "Old  Virginia,"  "The 
Mississippi  Valley  in  the  Civil  War," 
and  "  Myth  and  Myth  Makers,"  324. 

Fiske,  John,  great-grandfather  of  John 
Fiske,  322. 

"  Five  of  Clubs,  The,"  325. 

Flagg,  Wilson,  191;  sketch  of,  192-193; 
books  of:  "Studies  in  the  Field  and 
Forest,"  "Halcyon  Days,"  "A  Year 
with  the  Trees,"  and  "  A  Year  with  the 
Birds,"  192. 


Fletcher,  Grace,  see  Webster. 

Folsom,  Charles,  223. 

Forbes  Library,  Northampton,  Mass., 
440. 

Forest  City,  see  Portland,  Me. 

Forest  Hills  Cemetery,  Boston,  83. 

Fort  Constitution,  Portsmouth,  N.H., 
124. 

Foxcroft,  Phebe,  see  Phillips. 

Francis,  Rev.  Convers,  of  Watertown, 
Mass.,  302. 

Franklin  Academy,  Andover,  Mass.,  5. 

Franklin,  Benjamin,  75,  144,  439. 

Free  Church,  Worcester,  Mass.,  T.  W.  Hig- 
ginson  minister  of,  318. 

"Freemasons'  Arms"  tavern,  Portland, 
Me.,  139. 

Friends'  Meetinghouse,  Amesbury,Mass., 
61 ;  Whittier's  pew  in,  62. 

Fruitlands  Community,  395;  Louisa  M. 
Alcott's  story  of,  in  "Transcendental 
Wild  Oats,"  395  ;  396-397. 

Fuller,  Ellen  Kilshaw,  see  Channing. 

Fuller  (Ossoli),  Sarah  Margaret,  296, 298  ; 
birthplace  of,  299 ;  sketch  of,  299-304 ; 
"  Conversations  "  of,  in  Boston,  301, 302 ; 
association  of,  with  The  Dial,  301 ;  be- 
comes Countess  Ossoli,  303 ;  her  pro- 
jected "  History  of  the  Roman  Repub- 
lic," 303,  304 ;  "  Life  Within  and  Life 
Without,"  303;  her  translations,  304; 
"  Women  in  the  Nineteenth  Century," 
304;  her  tragic  death,  303-304;  339,371, 
394. 

Fuller,  Timothy,  father  of  Margaret 
Fuller,  300. 

"Gail  Hamilton,"  see  Dodge,  Mary 
Abigail. 

Gardiner,  Rev.  John  Sylvester  John,  first 
president  of  the  Boston  "Anthology 
Club  "  of  1804,  221 ;  classical  school  in 
the  "  study"  of,  221,  225  ;  George  Tick- 
nor  and  William  H.  Prescott  pupils  of, 
221,  225  ;  226,  228,  235. 

Gardiner,  William  H.,  235. 

Gardner,  Anne  Downing,  32,  34. 

Gardner,  Capt.  Joseph,  32. 

Garrison,  Abijah,  father  of  William  Lloyd 
Garrison,  79. 

Garrison,  William  Lloyd,  Whittier's  first 
poem  published  by,  50,  51,  52  ;  55  ;  birth- 


INDEX. 


513 


place  of,  73,  78 ;  sketch  of,  79-83  ;  grave 
of,  83  ;  statues  of,  83 ;  230,  350. 

Gay,  Sidney  Howard,  editor  of  the  Anti- 
slavery  Standard,  348. 

Gazette,  The  Portland,  Me.,  138. 

"  Gazette  of  the  Upper  Ten  Thousand, 
The,"  152. 

Genius  of  Universal  Emancipation,  of 
Baltimore,  Md.,  Garrison  editor  of,  81. 

Gerry,  Elbridge,  341. 

Gilman,  Arthur,  448. 

Gilman,  Edward,  131. 

Gloucester,  Mass.,  16, 215,  328. 

Godwin,  Park,  467,468. 

•'  Gold  house,"  the,  Pittsfield,  Mass.,  449. 

Gold,  Thomas,  449. 

Goodell,  Abner  Cheney,  214 ;  historic  house 
of,  Salem,  Mass.,  214-215  ;  editor  of  the 
"  Acts  and  Resolves  of  the  Province  of 
Massachusetts  Bay,"  214. 

Goodrich,  Samuel  Griswold  ("  Peter  Par- 
ley "),  the  "Peter  Parley  Books"  of, 
100, 169  ;  the  "  Token,"  148  ;  497. 

Goold,  William,  143. 

Gorham,  Lydia,  see  Phillips. 

Gorham,  Judge  Nathaniel,  7. 

Gorham,  N.H.,  home  of  Judge  Longfellow, 
the  poet's  grandfather,  134,  137. 

Gosport,  Isles  of  Shoals,  111. 

Gould,  Benjamin  Apthorp,  86,  184. 

Gould,  Elizabeth  Porter,  86, 184. 

Gould,  Hannah  Flagg,  73,  77  ;  home  of,  84  ; 
sketch  of,  86  ;  her  "  The  Veteran  and  the 
Child,"  "  The  Scar  of  Lexington,"  and 
"  Gathered  Leaves,"  86. 

Gould,  Thomas  R.,  98. 

Granary  burying-ground,  Boston,  219,  281. 

Grant,  Judge  Robert,  218. 

Graylock  Mountain,  of  the  Berkshires, 
Mass.,  451,  452,  458. 

Great  Barrington,  Mass.,  446,  448,  459  ;  lit- 
erary landmarks  of,  464-466;  Bryant 
homestead  in,  464  ;  468,  469,  470. 

Great  Boar's  Head,  Hampton,  N.H.,  70. 

Green,  The,  New  Haven,  Conn.,  488,  492, 
495. 

Green,  Edmund  Brewster,  father  of  John 
Fiske,  322-323. 

Green,  Edmund  Fiske,  see  John  Fiske. 

Green,  Mary  Fiske  (Bound),  323. 

Green,  Ruth,  seeWhittier. 

Greenleaf ,  Sarah,  see  Whittier. 


Greenwood,  Grace,  a  contributor  to  the 
National  Era,  59. 

Grinnell,  Joseph,  153. 

Groton,  Mass.,  Fuller  family  in,  300. 

Grove  Street,  New  Haven,  Conn.,  491. 

"  Guerriere,"  British  frigate,  141. 

Guiney,Louise  Imogen,  books  of  :  "Songs 
at  the  Start,"  "  The  White  Sail,"  "  A 
Roadside  Harp,"  "  England  and  Yester- 
day," "  The  Martyr's  Idyl,"  and  "  Pa- 
trins,"268;  270. 

Guiney,  Gen.  Patrick  R.,  268. 

Hale,  Rev.  Edward  Everett,  birth- 
place and  boyhood  homes  of,  290 ;  sketch 
of,  290-293 ;  his  "  Story  of  a  New  England 
Boyhood,"  290;  "The  Man  Without  a 
Country,"  291,  292;  "My  Double  and 
How  He  Undid  Me,"  291 ;  "  Ten  Times 
One  is  Ten,"  291-292  ;  "  In  His  Name," 
"  The  Ingram  Papers,"  and  "  Philip 
Nolan's  Friends,"  292  ;  "  Lend  a  Hand  " 
clubs  instituted  by,  293 ;  house  of,  293, 
294. 

Hale,  Rev.  John,  minister  of  Beverly, 
Mass.,  in  witchcraft  times,  187. 

Hale,  Nathan,  father  of  E.  E.  Hale,  291. 

Hale,  Capt.  Nathan,  291. 

Haley,  Samuel,  of  the  Isles  of  Shoals, 
112,  113. 

Haley's  Island,  Isles  of  Shoals,  110,  112, 
114. 

Half- Way  Rock,  Isles  of  Shoals,  116. 

Halleck,  Fitz-Greene,  95,  99,  469  ;  poetical 
allusion  of  to  Hillhouse,  489. 

Hallowell,  Me.,  Academy,  167. 

Halpin,  Charles  Graham  ("Miles 
O'Reilly"),  102. 

Hamilton,  Mass,  181-184. 

Hamilton  College*  Sereno  Edwards 
Dwight  president  of,  1833-1835,  44p ; 
Charles  Dudley  Warner  at,  481. 

Hampshire  Gazette,  in  which  Bryant's 
first  poem  was  published,  467. 

Hampton,  N.H.,  45,  70. 

Hampton  River,  70. 

Hancock,  John,  92,  419. 

"  Harley  College,"  165. 

Harper  's  Monthly,  13,  69,  169. 

Hartford,  Conn.,  20,  53,  54,  153;  -"Gail 
Hamilton  "  teacher  at,  182 ;  470  ;  literary 
landmarks  of,  472-488. 


514 


INDEX. 


Hartford  Courant,  Charles  Dudley  War- 
ner editor  of,  481,  482. 

Hartford  Press,  482. 

Hartford  Wits,  The  :  John  Trumbull,  472, 
487,  491  ;  his  "  M'Fingal,"  487 ;  Dr. 
Lemuel  Hopkins,  472,  488 ;  contributor 
to  "  The  Anarchiad,"  "  The  Echo,"  and 
"  The  Political  Greenhouse,"  488 ;  Joel 
Barlow,  473,  488,  490;  his  "Vision  of 

•  Columbus,"  488 ;  Theodore  Dwight,  the 
elder,  473,  488 ;  contributor  to  "  The 
Echo,"  488 ;  Col.  David  Humphreys,  473, 
488  contributor  to  "  The  Anarchiad," 
his  life  of  Gen.  Israel  Putnam, 
on  Washington's  staff,  488;  first 
American  ambassador  to  Lisbon  ,488;  490. 

Harvard  Advocate,  The,  194. 

Harvard  College  or  University,  Samuel 
Webber,  president  of,  1806-10,  8 ;  34  ; 
C.  C.  Felton  president  of,  1860-62,  72, 
325;  88,  94,  122,  137,  148;  Longfellow 
professor  in,  162, 325  ;  Nathaniel  Rogers 
president  of,  1683-84,  175 ;  193,  194,  217, 
220;  John  T.  Kirkland  president  of, 
1810-28,  222 ;  George  Ticknor  professor 
in,  227 ;  Josiah  Quincy  president  of, 
1829-45,  228  ;  229,  237,  244,  246,  250,  253, 
260,  265,  271 ;  Dr.  Holmes  professor  in 
the  Harvard  Medical  School,  279,  280; 
290,  295,  296,  304 ;  Jared  Sparks  presi- 
dent of,  1849-53,  306 ;  Francis  J.  Child 
professor  in,  307,.309  ;  Charles  Eliot  Nor- 
ton professor  in,  311 ;  312,  316,  323,  337, 
345 ;  J.  R.  Lowell  professor  in,  353,  354 ; 
Charles  W.  Eliot  president  of,  1869-  , 
356  ;  Benjamin  Wadsworth  president  of, 
1725-34,  369  ;  372,  376,  384,  409,  417,  419, 
423,  424,  425,  448. 

Harvard  College  Library,  The  "  Parkman 
Collection  "  in,  241 ;  419. 

Harvard  Divinity  School,  311,  384,  409. 

Harvard  Law  School,  244,  316,  325,  346. 

Harvard  Medical  School,  271,  279. 

Harvard  Observatory,  326. 

Harvard  University,  class  of  1829  cele- 
brated by  Holmes,  9,  284. 

Hassam,  Childe,  126. 

Hastings,  Jonathan  1st,  316. 

Hastings,  Jonathan  2d,  steward  of  Har- 
vard College,  316. 

Hathorne,  Capt.  Daniel,  grandfather  of 
Nathaniel  Hawthorne,  206,  207. 


Hathorne,  Elizabeth  Clarke  (Manning), 
mother  of  Hawthorne,  202  ;  death  of, 
204 ;  207,  214. 

Hathorne,  Elizabeth  Manning,  sister  of 
Hawthorne,  202,  207. 

Hathorne,  Col.  John,  of  Salem,  Mass.,  the 
"  witch  judge,"  207  ;  grave  of,  210. 

Hathorne,  Maria  Louisa,  sister  of  Haw- 
thorne, 202,  207. 

Hathorne,  Capt.  Nathaniel,  father  of 
Hawthorne,  207. 

Hathorne,  William,  the  emigrant,  of 
Salem,  first  American  ancestor  of  Haw- 
thorne, 207. 

Haverhill,  Mass.,  Whittier  landmarks  in, 
34-55 ;  60,  81. 

Haverhill  Academy,  36. 

Haverhill  (Mass.)  Gazette,  50  ;  Whittier's 
early  poems  published  in,  52 ;  Whittier 
editor  of,  53. 

Haverhill  home  of  Whittier,  see  Whittier 
homestead. 

Haverhill  Whittier  Club,  38. 

Hawley,  Gen.  Joseph  Roswell,  482. 

"Hawthorne  Brook,"  Brunswick,  Me., 
165. 

Hawthorne,  Julian,  202. 

Hawthorne,  Nathaniel,  "  The  Great  Stone 
Face,"  by,  59 ;  114,  124,  142  ;  student  life 
of,  at  Bowdoiu  College,  155, 158, 162, 163- 
166 ;  "  The  Snow  Image,"  164,  202,  405 ; 
"  Fanshawe,"  165,204,  208  ;  "  Twice  Told- 
Tales,"  200,  204,  208,  453 ;  life  and  work 
of,  in  Salem,  200-214 ;  "  The  Scarlet  Let- 
ter," 200-205,  278,  453  ;  "  Mosses  from  an 
Old  Manse,"  204,  414,  453 ;  the  English 
Note  Book,  204;  "Dr.  Grimshawe's 
Secret,"  206,  209,  403 ;  "  The  House  of 
The  Seven  Gables,"  206,  210,  212-213, 
448,458;  "American  Notes,"  207,  210, 
223,  233 ;  "  Tales  of  My  Native  Land," 
208;  marriage  of,  in  Boston,  209,  265; 
"  The  Gentle  Boy,"  209  ;  "  The  Deliver 
Romance,"  210,  403,  404  ;  "  Tales  of 
Grandfather's  Chair,"  213 ;  life  and 
work  of,  in  Lenox,  213,  406,  448,  453, 
457-459  ;  223,224,  265  ;  at  "  Brook  Farm," 
266;  "The  Blithedale  Romance,"  266, 
294,  406 ;  278,  294,  330,  332-333,  346,  347  ; 
"  My  Kinsman,  Major  Molineux,"  366 ; 
life  and  work  of,  in  Concord,  385,  397- 
406,  410-414;  at  "The  Wayside,"  398, 


INDEX. 


515 


402-406;  "Our  Old  Home,"  403;  "The 
Ancestral  Footstep,"  403;  "  Septimius 
Felton,"  403  ;  consulship  at  Liverpool, 
406 ;  in  the  "  Old  Manse,"  407,  410-414 ; 
431,  441 ;  intimacy  with  Herman  Mel- 
ville, 453-454;  "The  Wonder  Book," 
458 ;  470,  490. 

Hawthorne,  Rose,  see  Lathrop. 

Hawthorne,  Sophia  Amelia  (Peabody), 
203,  204,  206,  208,  209,  214,  265,  412,  454, 
4J>8 

Hawthorne,  Una,  202,  208,  414. 

Hawthorne's  class  at  Bowdoin  College, 
158,  164. 

"  Heartbreak  Hill,"  Ipswich,  Mass.,  181. 

Hecker,  Rev.  Isaac  Thomas,  397. 

Hedge,  Rev.  Dr.  Frederick  Henry,  302. 

Hemenway  Gymnasium,  Harvard  Uni- 
versity, 314. 

Herald,  Newburyport,  Mass.,  William 
Loyd  Garrison's  connection  with,  81. 

Hesperus,  the  schooner,  328,  329. 

Hickling,  Thomas,  of  Salem,  215. 

Higginson,  Rev.  Francis,  progenitor  of 
the  Higginson  family  in  America, 
317. 

Higginson,  Francis,  father  of  T.  W.  Hig- 
ginson, 316;  steward  of  Harvard  Col- 
lege, 316 ;  317. 

Higginson,   Louisa  (Storrow),  mother  of 
T.  W.  Higginson,  317. 

Higginson,  Mary  Elizabeth  (Channing) 
first  wife  of  T.  W.  Higginson,  319. 

Higginson,  Mary  Potter  (Thacher),  second 
wife  of  T.  W.  Higginson,  319 ;  the  "  Aunt 
Jane"  of  "  Malbone,"  319. 

Higginson,   Thomas   Wentworth,    68;    in 
Newburyport,  73,  83 ;  Life  of  Margaret 
Fuller  (Ossoli)  by,  300,  301,  339 ;   birth- 
place    of,     314 ;    sketch    of,    316-319 
"Cheerful    Yesterdays"    by,    316,  339; 
"  Thalatta,"  318  ;  "  Malbone,"  "  Young 
Folks'  History  of  the  United  States,' 
"  Larger  History  of  the  United  States,' 
and  "Oldport  Days,"  319;  later  Cam 
bridge    home    of,  337,   338-339;    "Con 
temporaries,"  "  Concerning  All  of  Us,' 
and  "  Old  Cambridge,"  339  ;  377. 
High  Street,  New  Haven,  Conn.,  491. 
High  Street,  Springfield,  Mass.,  428. 
Highland  Street,  Roxbury  district,  Bos 
ton,  293. 


lildreth,  Richard,  his  "History  of  the 
United  States,"  71 ;  148. 

Hillard,  George  Stillman,  105 ;  Boston 
homes  of,  264,  265  ;  sketch  of,  264-265 ; 
his  intimacy  with  Hawthorne,  265-266 ; 
"  Hillard's  Readers,"  and  "Six  Months 
in  Italy,"  265;  one  of  the  "Five  of 
Clubs,"  325 ;  403. 

fcttllhouse  A  venue,  New  Haven,  Conn.,  492. 

Hillhouse,  James,  father  of  the  poet,  492. 

tollhouse,  James  Abraham,  a  student  at 
Yale  College,  489 ;  master's  oration  of, 
on  "The  Education  of  a  Poet,"  489; 
Phi  Beta  Kappa  poem  of,  "  The  Judg- 
ment,'' 489  ;  Fitz-Greene  Halleck's  allu- 
sion to,  489 ;  home  of,  492 ;  "  Demetria, 
Percy's  Masque,"  and  "  Hadad,"  492  ; 
tomb  of,  492. 

"Hillside,  The,"  home  of  the  Alcotts, 
Concord,  Mass.,  398,399,  400,  405. 

Hilton,  Martha,  92,  108. 

Hiram,  Me.,  home  of  Gen.  Wadsworth, 
Longfellow's  grandfather,  134, 136. 

Hoar,  Judge  Ebenezer  Rockwood,  377; 
birthplace  of,  Concord,  Mass.,  378. 

Hoar,  George  Frisbie,  293  ;  birthplace  of, 
Concord,  Mass.,  378. 

Hoar,  Samuel,  old  mansion  house  of, 
Concord,  378. 

Hog  Island,  see  Appledore  Island. 

Holland,  Dr.  Josiah  Gilbert,  grave  and 
monument  of,  425,  426;  sketch  of,  426- 
428  ;  connection  of,  with  the  Springfield 
Republican,  427  ;  "  Sketches  of  Planta- 
tion Life  "  by,  427  ;  the  "  Timothy  Tit- 
comb  Letters,"  427,  428 ;  "  The  Bay 
Path,"  "Gold  Foil,"  "Letters  to  the 
Joneses,"  and  "  Bitter  Sweet,"  427 ; 
Springfield  homes  of,  428 ;  editorship  of 
the  first  Scribner's  Monthly, '428 ;  "  Miss 
Gilbert's  Career,"  "  Seven  Oaks," 
"  Arthur  Bonnicastle,"  and  "  Nicholas 
Minturn,"  428;  "  Kathrina,"  428,  432; 
445,453. 

Holliston,  Mass.,  420. 

Holmes,  Rev.  Abiel,  father  of  O.  W. 
Holmes,  316  ;  in  "  The  Old  Gambrel- 
roofed  House,"  316 ;  "  Annals  of  Cam- 
bridge," 316 ;  ministry  of,  in  Cambridge, 
316. 

Holmes,  Amelia  (Jackson),  wife  of  O.  W. 
Holmes,  280. 


516 


INDEX. 


Holmes,  John,  319  ;  characterization  of, 
320;  his  sketches  of  Old  Cambridge, 
320, 356. 

Holmes,  Oliver  Wendell,  5,  9,  32  ;  tribute 
of,  to  Whittier,  64;  99,  142,  147,  153; 
"  The  Autocrat  of  the  Breakfast  Table," 
198,  199,  281,  282  ;  summer  home  of,  at 
" Beverly-by-the-Depot,"  198,  199;  229, 
231 ;  Boston  home  of,  in  Charles  Street, 
276,  279-281,  282 ;  "  The  Professor  at  the 
Breakfast  Table,"  "The  Guardian 
Angel,"  "  My  Hunt  After  the  Captain," 
and  "  Dorothy  Q,"  279 ;  "  Elsie  Venner," 
279, 450 ;  professorship  of,  in  the  Harvard 
Medical  School,  279,  280;  earlier  home 
of,  in  Montgomery  Place,  281-282 ;  "  The 
Promise,"  "  The  Chambered  Nautilus," 
and  "  The  Living  Temple,"  282,  283  ; 
"  Contentment,"  282,  285  ;  "  The  Dea- 
con's Masterpiece,"  282,  285,  451 ;  "  Par- 
son Turell's  Legacy,"  "  The  Old  Man's 
Dream,"  and  "Old  Ironsides,"  283; 
"  The  Last  Leaf,"  283,  452 ;  "  The 
Mother's  Secret,"  "St.  Anthony  the 
Reformer,"  "  Under  the  Violets,"  "  The 
Crooked  Path,"  and  "The  Boys," 
Harvard  Class  of  1829,  284;  last  home 
of,  in  Beacon  Street,  285 ;  "No  Time 
Like  the  Old  Time,"  285  ;  "  The  Poet  at 
the  Breakfast  Table,"  "Over  the  Tea 
Cups,"  and  "  Our  Hundred  Days  in 
Europe,"  286 ;  "A  Ballad  of  the  Boston 
Tea  Party,"  "  Grandmother's  Story  of 
the  Bunker  Hill  Battle,"  and  "The 
Iron  Gate,"  287 ;  the  Birthday  Break- 
fast on  the  seventieth  anniversary  of, 
288  ;  "  The  Broomstick  Train,"  288  ; 
death  of,  288 ;  289,  290,  293,  296,  298  ; 
the  "  old  gambrel-roofed  house,"  314  ; 
319,  320,  356,  384,  402,  434,  439 ;  Canoe 
Meadows,  the  ancestral  country  seat  of, 
450 ; "  The  Ploughman,"  450,  451;  459, 497. 

Holmes,  chief  justice  Oliver  Wendell, 
279,  280. 

Holmes,  Sarah  (Wendell),  mother  of  O.  W. 
Holmes,  320. 

Holmes  Farm,  Cambridge,  314,  316. 

Holmes  Field,  Harvard  University,  314. 

Home  Journal ,  Willis's,  95,  152. 

Hooker,  Thomas,  485. 

Hooper,  Lucy,  72. 

Hopkins,  Dr.  Lemuel,  472,  488. 


Hopkins,  Mark,  birthplace  of,  464. 
Hopkins,  Rev.  Dr.  Samuel,  a  promoter  of 

Andover  Theological  Seminary,  7. 
Hosmer  Cottage,  the  first  Concord  home 

of  the  Alcotts,  395,  396. 
Hosmer,  Edmund,  of  Concord,  Mass.,  385. 
Hosmer,  Harriet  Grant,  457. 
Housatonic    River,  Holmes's  description 

of,  451 ;  457,  460. 
Howe,   Julia   Ward,  149;   homes   of,  in 

Boston,  253,  288 ;  her  "  Battle  Hymn  of 

the  Republic,"  253,  288,  289 ;"  Reminis- 
cences," 288. 
Howe,  Lyman,  the  "Landlord"  in   the 

"  Tales  of  a  Wayside  Inn,"  366,  369. 
Howe,  Dr.  Samuel  Gridley,  149. 
Howells,  William  Dean,  Boston  home  of, 

264  ;  267,  308,  320,  356,  431. 
Howes,    the,   of    the    "  Wayside    Inn : " 

Lyman,    366,   369;    Col.    Ezekiel,   and 

Adam,  369. 
Hubbard,  Rev.  William,  of  Ipswich,  Mass., 

173  ;  house  of,  178. 
"  Hugh  Percival,"  early  nom  de  plume  of 

J.  R.  Lowell,  346. 
Hughes,    Thomas,    his    introduction    of 

the    English    edition    of  "  The    Biglow 

Papers,"  349. 

Humphreys,  Colonel  David,  473. 
Hunt,  William  Morris,  125,  248. 
Huntley,  Lydia,  see  Sigourney. 
Hussey,  Christopher,  45. 
Hussey,  Mercy  Evans,  Whittier's  "  Aunt 

Mercy,"  46. 
Hussey,  Samuel,  45. 

"  Idle  Man,  The,"  247,  248,  497. 

"  Idlewild,"  153. 

"  Ik  Marvel,"  see  Mitchell,  Donald  G. 

"  Ike  Partington,"  101. 

Independent  Chronicle  and  Universal  Ad- 
vertiser, 144. 

Ingalls,  Mary,  heroine  of  Whittier's  "  The 
Countess,"  47. 

Ingersoll,  Susan,  association  of,  with  "The 
House  of  the  Seven  Gables,"  213. 

Ipswich,  Mass.,  27,  29,  31  ;  literary  land- 
marks of,  173-181  ;  311. 

Ipswich  River,  173,  175,  176,  178. 

Irving,  Washington,  in  Boston,  99 ;  162, 
222  ;  Allston's  intimacy  with,  296  ;  496. 

Isles  of  Shoals,  89,  109,  110-127,  316,  352. 


INDEX. 


517 


Jackson,  Amelia,  see  Holmes. 

.Jackson,  .Judge  Charles,  280. 

Jackson,  Lydia,  see  Emerson. 

Jail  in  Salem,  the,  of  witchcraft  times, 
215. 

James,  George  Payne  Rainsford,  at  Lenox, 
Mass.,  458. 

James,  Henry,  on  "  The  Scarlet  Letter," 
205. 

Jefferson  Physical  Laboratory,  Harvard 
University,  314. 

Jewett,  John  Punchard,  first  publisher  of 
"  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,"  160. 

Jewett,  Sarah  Orne,  home  of,  South  Ber- 
wick, Me.,  128,  129;  sketch  of,  129-132; 
"A  Country  Doctor"  by,  131;  "Deep- 
haven,"  132  ;  275 ;  Boston  home  of, 
277. 

Jewett,  Dr.  Theodore  Herman,  father  of 
Sarah  O.  Jewett,  129,  131. 

Job's  Hill,  Haverhill,  Mass.,  38,  57. 

Johnson,  Edward,  his  early  history  of 
New  England,  174. 

Johnson,  Mary,  see  Phelps. 

"  Josh  Billings,"  see  Shaw,  Henry  W. 

Journal,  Louisville,  Ky.,  see  Courier- 
Journal. 

Journal  of  the  Times,  edited  by  William 
Lloyd  Garrison,  81. 

Judson,  Rev.  Adoniram,  419. 

Juvenile  Miscellany,  conducted  by  Lydia 
Maria  Child,  457. 

Kellogrg,  Clara  Louise,  188. 

Kellogg,  Rev.  Elijah,  143. 

Kemble,  Frances  Anne,  at  Lenox,  Mass., 

457. 
Kidd,  Captain  William,  at  the   Isles  of 

Shoals,  117. 
King  Philip's  War,  178,  179 ;  Wadsworth 

and  Brocklebank  in  the  Sudbury  Fight, 

364,369. 

King  Street,  Northampton,  Mass.,  433,436. 
Kirkland,  Rev.    John   Thornton   of   the 

Boston  Anthology  Club  of  1804,  222. 
Kirkland  Street,  Cambridge,    Mass.,  307, 

314  ;  Professors'  Row  in,  307,  325. 
Kittery,  Me.,  92, 109. 
Knapp,  Isaac,  associate  with  Garrison  in 

The  Liberator,  82. 

"  Knickerbocker  Magazine,"  T.  B.  Aid- 
rich's  early  poems  in,  95  ;  "  Hannah 


Binding  Shoes,"  first  published  in,  187, 
188 ;  "  The  Oregon  Trail "  first  published 
in,  245 ;  ••  The  Psalm  of  Life  "  first  pub- 
lished in,  328 ;"  The  Skeleton  in  Armor  " 
first  published  in,  329;  "Threnodia" 
first  published  in,  346 ;  Warner's  contri- 
butions to,  481. 
Knox,  General  Henry,  92. 

Laighton,  Albert,  89. 

Laighton,  Ctedric,  122. 

Laighton,  Eliza  (Rymes),  122, 123. 

Laighton,  Oscar,  122. 

Laighton,  Thomas,  120,  122,  123. 

Laighton's  Isles  of  Shoals,  112, 122, 126. 

Lake  Mahkeenac  (Stockbridge  Bowl),  457. 

Lamb,  Charles,  Washington  Allston's 
friendship  with,  297. 

Langton,  Governor,  house  of,  Portsmouth, 
N.H.,  103. 

Langdon,  Samuel,  president  of  Harvard 
College,  1774-1780,  314. 

Lanesborough,  Mass.,  birthplace  of  Henry 
W.  Shaw  ("  Josh  Billings  "),  448. 

Larcom,  Capt.  Benjamin,  father  of  Lucy 
Larcom,  185, 186. 

Larcom,  Emeline,  her  literary  journal, 
for  Lowell  mill-hands,  189. 

Larcom,  Lucy,  59,  62,  65 ;  association  with 
Our  Young  Folks,  183,  191  ;  birthplace 
of,  185-187  ;  sketch  of,  185-191 ;  "  A  New 
England  Girlhood "  by,  185,  189 ;  early 
contributions  of,  to  the  Lowell  Offering, 
the  factory  girls'  journal,  186  ; "  Hannah 
Binding  Shoes,"  186, 187, 191 ;  "  Skipper 
Ben,"  "On  the  Beach,"  "A  Sea 
Glimpse,"  "  The  Light  Houses,"  "  Peggy 
Blight's  Voyage,"  "  Wild  Roses  of  Cape 
Ann,"  "  My  Mariner,"  "On  the  Misery," 
and  "  Mistress  Hale  of  Beverly,"  187 ; 
"  Child's  Life  "  and  "  Songs  of  Three 
Centuries,"  compiled  by,  with  Whittier, 
190  ;  "  Similitudes,"  first  book  of,  190. 

Larcom  family,  186, 189. 

Lathrop,  George  Parsons,  255,  256,  404, 
405,  457,  459. 

Lathrop,  Rose  (Hawthorne),  404 ;  her 
"  Memories  of  Hawthorne,"  quoted,  405 ; 
referred  to,  459  ;  birthplace  of,  459. 

Latin  book,  first  published  in  America, 
174. 

Law,  Jonathan,  487. 


518 


INDEX. 


Lawrence  Scientific  School,  Harvard  Uni- 
versity, 305, 314. 

Leavitt,  Christopher,  first  European  on 
the  Isles  of  Shoals,  111,  117. 

Lee,  Richard  Henry,  sons  of,  at  Phillips 
(Andover)  Academy,  5. 

Legendary,  The,  148. 

Legislature,  Massachusetts,  Whittier 
mem  her  of,  55;  Stephen  Longfellow 
member  of,  137  ;  Timothy  Fuller  mem- 
ber of,  300  ;  John  G.  Palfrey  member  of, 
312. 

"  Lend-a-Hand  "  clubs,  293. 

Lenox,  Mass.,  446,  449,  450  ;  literary  land- 
marks of,  456-459 ;  461. 

Leslie,  Charles  Robert,  223. 

Lewis,  Charles  Bertrand,  "  M.  Quad,"  102. 

Lexington,  Mass.,  86,  220,  244,  358,  371,  378, 
387,  405,  414. 

Liberator,  The,  55,  82. 

Lind,  Jenny,  at  Northampton,  Mass., 
443. 

Linzee,  Capt.  John,  the  British  bearer  of 
one  of  "the  crossed  swords,"  234,  235. 

Literary  World,  the  Duyckincks',  453. 

Little  Harbor,  Portsmouth,  N.H.,  92, 102, 
106,  109. 

"Little  Red  Cottage"  of  Hawthorne  at 
Lenox,  Mass.,  448,  457-458. 

Lodge,  Henry  Cabot,  218. 

London  Punch,  171 ;  tribute  to  Holmes, 
283-284. 

Londoner's  Island,  Isles  of  Shoals,  110, 
114, 116, 

Longfellow,  Anna,  see  Pierce. 

Longfellow,  Anne  (Sewall),  86. 

Longfellow,  Frances  Elizabeth  (Apple- 
ton),  second  wife  of  H.  W.  Longfellow, 
329 ;  original  of  "  Mary  Ashburton  "  of 
Longfellow's  "Hyperion,"  330;  death 
and  burial  of,  335  ;  353,  425,  426,  449. 

Longfellow,  Henry  Wadsworth,  "  Tales  of 
a  Wayside  Inn  "  by,  70,  269,  335,  336, 362- 
369  ;  71,  92 ;  "  Lady  Wentworth,"  92,  102, 
106-108, 109  ;  birthplace  of,  132-134  ;  boy- 
hood home  of,  136-138 ;  first  published 
poem  of, "  The  Battle  of  Lovell's  Pond," 
138,  142-143  ;  statue  of,  139 ;  "  My  Lost 
Youth,"  139,  334;  "The  Ropewalk," 
141 ;  "Keramos,"  141,  336 ;  142,  147,  151, 
153  ;  student  life  of,  at  Bowdoin  College, 
155,  157-158,  160 ;  professorship  of,  155, 


161-162 ;  first  marriage  of,  161 ;  "  Foot- 
steps of  Angels,"  161 ;  "  Outre-Mer," 
162,  326 ;  "  Morituri  Salutamus,"  162; 
professorship  of,  at  Harvard,  162,  325, 
334  ;  165, 167  ;  "  The  Song  of  Hiawatha," 
217,  333-334,  336  ;  231,  260 ;  "  The  Hanging 
of  the  Crane,"  origin  of,  274 ;  278,  305 ; 
lines  "  To  Agassiz,"  305  ;  "  Midnight 
Mass  to  the  Dying  Year,"  318,328  ;  •'  The 
Village  Blacksmith,"  321,  332;  life  and 
work  of,  in  the  Longfellow-Craigie 
house,  324-327  ;  associates  in  the  "  Five 
of  Clubs,"  325 ;  journal  of,  quoted,  328, 
329, 332, 336 ; "  Voices  of  the  Night,"  first 
published  volume  of,  328  ;  "  The  Psalm 
of  Life,"  and  "  The  Reaper  and  the 
Flowers,"  328 ;  "  The  Wreck  of  the  Hes- 
perus," and  "  The  Skeleton  in  Armor," 
328,  329  ;  "  Excelsior,"  first  draft  of,  in 
the  Harvard  College  Library,  329  ;  "  The 
Belfry  of  Bruges,"  329  ;  the  poet's  second 
marriage,  329  ;  "  Hyperion,"  330 ;  "  The 
Old  Clock  on  the  Stairs,"  332,  448,  449 ; 
"  Evangeline,"  begun  as  "Gabrielle," 
332;  Hawthorne's  suggestion  of  the 
poem,  332-333  ;  "  The  Bridge  Across  the 
Charles,"  "  Birds  of  Passage,"  and  "  The 
Day  is  Done,"  332 ;  "  The  Building  of 
the  Ship,"  "  The  Golden  Legend,"  "  The 
Two  Angels,"  "  The  Courtship  of  Miles 
Standish,"  and  "Paul  Revere's  Ride," 
334 ;"  Kavanagh,"  334,  451  ;  tragedy  of 
the  poet's  life,  335 ;  "  The  Divine 
Comedy  of  Dante  Alighieri,"  335,  336; 
"  Flower-de-luce,"  and  "  New  England 
Tragedies,"  335;  "  Christus,"  "Three 
Books  of  Song,"  "  Aftermath,"  "  Masque 
of  Pandora,"  "Poems  of  Places,"  and 
"  Ultima  Thule,"  336 ;  death  and  funeral 
of,  336  ;  353,  369,  403 ;  "  The  Arsenal  at 
Springfield,"  425^26 ;  448,  451,  458. 

Longfellow,  Mary  (Potter),  first  wife  of 
H.  W.  Longfellow,  death  of,  162. 

Longfellow,  Rev,  Samuel,  brother  of  the 
poet,  136, 157,  318  ;  his  Life  of  Longfellow 
quoted,  326,  328,  335  ;  336. 

Longfellow,  Stephen  (1),  son  of  William, 
the  emigrant,  88. 

Longfellow,  Stephen  (2),  son  of  Stephen, 
schoolmaster,  first  of  the  Longfellows 
in  Portland  (Falmouth),  Me.,  88. 

Longfellow,  Stephen  (3),  son  of  Stephen 


INDEX. 


519 


(2),  judge,  grandfather  ot  the  poet,  88, 
134,  137  ;  sketch  of,  138. 

Longfellow,  Stephen  (4),  son  of  Stephen 
(3),  lawyer  and  statesman,  father  of  the 
poet,  88, 133, 136  ;  sketch  of,  137  ;  138, 140, 
160. 

Longfellow,  Stephen  (5),  brother  of  the 
poet,  133, 137,  157. 

Longfellow,  William,  of  Byfield,  Mass., 
the  emigrant,  progenitor  of  the  Ameri- 
can Longf ellows,  86,  88. 

Longfellow,  Zilpah  (Wadsworth),  137, 140, 
141,  369. 

Longfellow  family,  88, 134. 

Longfellow  Garden,  Cambridge,  Mass., 
330. 

Longfellow  homestead,  Bytield,  Mass.,  86. 

Longfellow  (Vassal-Craigie)  house,  Cam- 
bridge, Mass.,  307,  321,  324-337;  Long- 
fellow's description  of,  in  Madam 
Craigie's  time,  326  ;  sketch  of,  330-332  ; 
340. 

Longfellow  mansion,  Portland,  Me.,  132; 
sketch  of,  134-136  ;  137,  141, 161. 

Longfellow's  class  at  Bowdoin  College, 
158. 

Loring,  Dr.  George  Bailey,  204,  346. 

Lothrop,  Margaret  ("  Margaret  Sidney  "), 
402. 

Lothrop  family,  233. 

Louisburg  Square,  Boston,  264,  400. 

Louisville  Journal,  see  Courier-Journal. 

Lovejoy,  Rev.  Elijah  Parish,  158. 

"  Lovewell's  Fight,"  138. 

Lowell,  Rev.  Charles,  son  of  John,  the 
jurist,  father  of  J.  R.  Lowell,  84,  253 ;  at 
"  Elmwood,"  341,  345,  347. 

Lowell,  Frances  (Dunlap),  second  wife  of 
J.  R.  Lowell,  354. 

Lowell,  Francis  Cabot,  the  manufacturer, 
son  of  John,  the  jurist,  84. 

Lowell,  Harriet  (Spence),  mother  of  J.  R. 
Lowell,  345. 

Lowell,  James  Russell,  editorship  of  the 
Atlantic  Monthly,  60,  69,  125,  353 ;  71 ; 
"Elmwood,"  birthplace  and  life-long 
home  of,  83,  340-357 ;  84 ;  "  Pictures 
from  Appledore,"  116,  352;  123;  "A 
Fable  for  Critics,"  145,  350,  351 ;  151,  153, 
194,  243,  253,  269;  "Cambridge  Thirty 
Years  Ago,"  297,  342  ;  301,  303,  311 ;  "  To 
John  G.  Palfrey,  "  313,  350  ;  "  Fireside 


Travels,"  319;  320,  334,  335,  337,  338; 
sketch  of,  342-357  ;  first  poems  of,  pub- 
lished over  a  nom  de  plume,  346 ; 
"  Threnodia,"  346;  "  A  Year's  Life,"  first 
volume  of,  347  ;  "  Legends  of  Brittany," 
second  volume  of,  347;  magazine  of, 
The  Pioneer,  347 ;  antislavery  writings 
of,  347-350;  first  marriage  of,  348;  the 
"  Biglow  Papers,"  348-349,  350,  351,  353  ; 
"Euridyce,"  "The  Changeling,"  "To 
Lamartine,"  "  A  Parable,"  "  The  Part- 
ing of  the  Ways,"  "  Beaver  Brook," 
"  The  First  Snow  Fall,"  "  Stanzas  to 
Freedom,"  and  "  To  W.  L.  Garrison," 
350 ;  "  The  Vision  of  Sir  Launfal,"  350, 
351-352;  "  The  Courtin',"  351;  the  pro- 
posed "  The  Nooning,"  352 ;  "  Under  the 
Willows,"  and  "Leaves  from  my  Journal 
in  Italy  and  Elsewhere,"  352;  Lowell 
Institute  lectures  of,  353 ;  editorship, 
with  Norton,  of  North  American  Review , 
353 ;  professorship  of,  at  Harvard,  353, 
354;  "The  Washers  of  the  Shroud," 
353 ;  The  Commemoration  Ode,  353,  354 ; 
second  marriage  of,  354 ;  eulogy  on 
Agassiz,  354 ;  diplomatic  service  of,  354 ; 
"  Literary  and  Political  Addresses," 
355 ;  "  Last  Poems,"  edited  by  Norton, 
355 ;  death  and  burial  of,  356 ;  384,  403, 
428,  494. 

Lowell  (or  Lowle),  John  of  Newbury,  the 
first  in  America,  ancestor  of  the  Lowells, 
83. 

Lowell,  Rev.  John,  great-grandfather  of 
James  Russell  Lowell,  first  minister  of 
Newburyport,  83  ;  his  motto,  83. 

Lowell  John,  the  jurist,  son  of  Rev.  John, 
grandfather  of  J.  R.  Lowell,  83,  84. 

Lowell,  John,  the  pamphleteer,  son  of 
John,  the  jurist,  84. 

Lowell,  Mabel,  see  Burnett. 

Lowell,  Maria  (White),  first  wife  of  J.  R. 
Lowell,  123,  301,  334,  347. 

Lowell  family,  83,  84. 

Lowell,  Mass.,  84, 189. 

Lowell  house,  Newburyport,  Mass.,  83. 

Lowell  Institute,  Boston,  305;  J.  R. 
Lowell's  lectures  at,  353. 

Lowell  Offering,  186,  190. 

Lowle  John,  see  Lowell  John. 

Lunt,  Adaline  Treadwell  (Parsons),  271. 

Lunt  George,  poems  of,  and  novel,  "  East- 


520 


INDEX. 


ford,"  72;  contributor  to  Willis's 
American  Monthly,  148 ;  271. 

Lynde,  Chief  Justice  Benjamin,  of  Massa- 
chusetts Bay  Province,  grave  of,  210, 222. 

Lynn,  Mass.,  79,  81,  217. 

"  M.  Quad,"  see  Lewis,  Charles  B. 

McCabe,  Chaplain,  289. 

McGill  University,  honors  to  Parkman, 

246. 

M'Lellan,  Isaac,  5, 142, 148. 
Macrae,  David,  279 ;    his  description   of 

Holmes,  280  ;  of  Emerson's  smile,  387. 
Magazine  Street,  Cambridge,  Mass.,  295, 

297. 
Main  Street,  Concord,  Mass.,  370,  371 ,  375, 

376,  378,  400. 

Main  Street,  Hartford,  Conn.,  484,  487. 
Main  Street,  Northampton,  Mass.,  433. 
Maine  Historical  Society,  136. 
Maine's  chief  college  town,  155-170. 
Malaga  Island,  Isles  of  Shoals,  110, 114. 
"  Mall,"  the,  Newburyport,  Mass.,  79. 
Manchester-by-the-sea,    Mass.,    198,    199, 

250. 

Mann,  Horace,  208,  312,  406. 
Mann,  Mary  (Peabody),  208. 
Manning  family,  207. 
Manning  homestead,  Salem,  Mass.,  166 

206. 

Manning,  Richard,  207. 
Manning,  Robert,  166,  207. 
"  Margaret  Sidney,"  see   Lothrop,  Mar- 
garet. 

"  Mark  Twain,"  see  Clemens,  Samuel  L. 
Massachusetts  Bay  Colony,  317. 
Massachusetts  Bay  Side,  185-198 ;  271. 
Massachusetts  Bill  of  Rights,  83. 
Massachusetts   Historical    Society,   235  ; 

house  of,  290. 

Mason,  Jeremiah,  105,  158,  164. 
Mason,  Dr.  Lowell,  8. 
Mason,  William,  126. 
Mather,  Rev.  Cotton,  26 ;  his  "  Magnalia,' 

29,210;  177,211,212. 
Mather,  Rev.  Increase,  26,  221. 
Mather,  Nathaniel,  grave  of,  210 ;  sketch 

of,  211. 

Mather,  Rev.  Samuel,  26,  211. 
May,  Abigail,  see  Alcott. 
May,  Rev.  Samuel  Joseph,  389. 
Mead,  Edwin  Doak,  266,  267 ;  sketch  of 


266-267;  his  "Martin   Luther,"  "Out- 
line Studies  of  Holland,"  and  "Repre- 
sentative Government,"  267. 
Mead,  Larkin  Goldsmith,  266. 
Mead,  William  Rutherford,  266. 
Meadow     City "     the     (Northampton, 
Mass.),  432. 

Medfield,  Mass.,  416,  417. 
Medford,  Mass.,  73. 
Mellen,  Frederick,  138,  158. 
Mellen,  Grenville,  his  "  Glad  Tales  and 

Sad  Tales,"  142  ;  158. 
Mellen,  Judge  Prentiss,  138, 142,  158. 
Melville,  Herman,  452  ;  "Arrowhead," 
Pittsfield  home  of,  452,  453;  his  sea 
and  other  stories  written  here,  452-453 ; 
"  Typee,"  452, 455, 456  ;  "  White  Jacket," 
452,  456  ;  "  Pierre,"  "  Israel  Potter," 
"  Piazza  Tales,"  and  "  October  Moun- 
tain," 453 ;  "  Moby  Dick,"  453,  456 ; 
friendship  with  Hawthorne,  453-454 ; 
sketch  of,  454-456  ;  "  Omoo,"  and  "  MaidS, 
and  a  Voyage  Thither,"  455;  "Red- 
burn,"  456 ;  458. 

Melville,  The  Majors  Thomas,  451,  452 ; 
the   first   Major    Melville,   original   of 
Holmes's  "  The  Last  Leaf,"  452. 
Memorial  Hall,  Harvard  University,  316. 
Memphremagog,  Lake,  245. 
Menotomy,  Indian    name    of   Arlington, 

Mass.,  358. 
Mercantile  Library  Association,  Boston, 

97,  98,  271. 

Merrimac  River,  35,43,  44,  64,  65,  70. 
Merwin,  Henry  Childs,  home  and  work  of, 
252;  his  "Road,  Track,  and   Stable," 
252. 

Metcalf,  Holliston,  Mass.,  420. 
Mile  River,  Northampton,  Mass.,  443. 
"  Miles  O'Reilly,"  see  Halpin,  Charles  G. 
Milton,  Mass.,  230,  231. 
Mitchell,  Donald  Grant  ("  Ik  Marvel "), 
a   student   at   Yale   College,   489 ;    his 
"  Reveries  of  a  Bachelor,"  489, 499,  500  ; 
"  Edgewood,"  home  of,  497-499  ;  sketch 
of,  499-501 ;  "  Dream  Life"  and  "  Fresh 
Gleanings,"    499  ;    "  The    Battle   Sum- 
mer," 499,  500;    "My    Farm    at  Edge- 
wood,"    499,    501  ;    "  The    Lorgnette," 
500;  "Wet-Days   at  Edgewood,"  "Dr. 
Johns,"    "  Rural    Studies,"    "  English 
Lands,     Letters,     and     Kings,"     and 


INDEX. 


521 


"  American  Lands  and  tetters,"  501 ; 
editor  of  Hearth  and  Home,  501. 

Molineux,  Major,  rhymes  by,  on  a  win- 
dow-pane of  the  "  Wayside  Inn,"  366. 

Montgomery  Place,  Boston,  281-282. 

Monthly  Anthology,  The,  220,  222,  467. 

Monti,  Luigi,  365 ;  "  The  Young  Sicilian" 
in  the  "  Tales  of  a  Wayside  Inn,"  365. 

Monticello  Female  Seminary,  Lucy  Lar- 
com  a  teacher  in,  190. 

Monument  Mountain,  The  Berkshires, 
Mass.,  454,  464. 

Moody,  Rev.  Samuel  (••  Father  Moody"), 
anecdotes  of,  180. 

Moore,  Thomas,  souvenir  of,  in  Long- 
fellow's study,  330. 

Morris,  George  Pope,  148,  149. 

Morse,  Prof.  Edward  Sylvester,  143. 

Morse,  Rev.  Jedidiah,  419,  490  ;  grave  of, 
491. 

Morse,  John  Torrey,  Jr.,  biographer  of 
Holmes,  280,  285,  288, 450 ;  home  of,  289. 

Morse,  Royal,  the  "  R.  M."  of  Lowell's 
"  Fireside  Travels,"  319. 

Morse,  Samuel  Finley  Breese,  419. 

Motley,  John  Lothrop,  139,  142,  148,  217 ; 
last  Boston  home  of,  228;  boyhood 
home  of,  228-230 ;  sketch  of,  231-233 ; 
novels  of,  "  Morton's  Hope,"  and  "  Mer- 
rymount,"  231 ;"  The  Rise  of  the  Dutch 
Republic,"  "  The  History  of  the  United 
Netherlands,"  and  "  Life  and  Death  of 
John  of  Barneveld,"  232 ;  foreign  life 
of,  233  ;  grave  of,  in  London,  233 ;  246, 
285. 

Motley,  Mary  (Benjamin),  wife  of  J.  L. 
Motley,  231. 

Motley,  Thomas,  grandfather  of  J.  L. 
Motley,  139. 

Motley,  Thomas,  father  of  J.  L.  Motley, 
229,230. 

Moulton,  Louise  Chandler,  102. 

Mount  Auburn,  Cambridge,'  Mass.,  grave 
of  N.  P.  Willis,  153 ;  grave  of  W.  E. 
Channing,  261  ;  "285 ;  grave  of  Agassiz, 
306 ;  335 ;  graves  of  Longfellow  and 
Lowell,  356. 

Mount  Auburn  Street,  Cambridge,  Mass., 
earlier  the  "  New  Road,"  342. 

Mount  Vernoii  Street,  Boston,  253,  254, 
256,  258,  259,  260,  261,  263,  276. 

M  Mrs.  Partington,"  see  SMUaber,  B.  P. 


Museum  of  Comparative  Zoology,  Harvard 

University,  305. 
"  Mutual  Admiration  Society,"  325. 

Nahant,  Mass.,  17.3,  217,  218,  232,  250, 
334. 

Nation,  The,  194, 197. 

National  Era,  The,  "  Uncle  Tom's 
Cabin"  first  published  in,  19,  160; 
Whittier's  poems  and  prose  writings  in, 
59;  182. 

National  Philanthropist,  The,  Garrison 
editor  of,  52,  81. 

National  Press,  The,  152. 

Navy  Yard,  Kittery,  Me.,  92. 

Neal,  John,  140 ;  his  "  Battle  of  Niagara," 
142. 

New  England  Courant,  144. 

New  England  Literary  Review,  Prentice's 
editorship  of,  53,  486 ;  Whittier's  editor- 
ship of,  53,  486  ;  Whittier's  poems  pub- 
lished in,  53,  486  ;  496. 

New  England  Magazine,  266. 

New  England  Magazine,  Buckingham's, 
162,  231,  282. 

New  Hampshire  Gazette,  122. 

New  Haven,  Conn.,  415,  435;  literary 
landmarks  of,  488-501 ;  497. 

New  Nation,  The,  431. 

New  South  Church,  Boston,  222. 

New  York  Ledger,  The,  "  Hanging  of  the 
Crane  "  first  published  in,  274. 

New  York  Mirror,  N.  P.  Willis's  connec- 
tion with,  147,  148, 149,  150,  152. 

New  York  Review  and  Athenaeum  Maga- 
zine, Bryant  assistant  editor  of,  469. 

New  York  Tribune,  Margaret  Fuller  a 
writer  on,  302,  385. 

New  World,  the  "  Wreck  of  the  Hes- 
perus "  first  published  in,  329. 

Newbury,  Mass.,  9,  43,  64,  71,  72,  83,  86. 

Newburyport,  Mass.,  7,  8,  51,  63,  64 ;  liter- 
ary landmarks  of,  65-88  ;  318,  489. 

Newburyport  (Mass.)  Free  Press,  Whit- 
tier's first  published  poem  in,  50,  52,  81. 

Newburyport  (Mass.)  Herald,  association 
of  W.  L.  Garrison  with,  81,  82. 

Newcastle,  N.H.,  109,  123. 

"Newe  Towne  "  (Cambridge),  27,31,  175. 

Newport,  R.I.,  319,  443. 

Newton,  Mass.,  16. 

Niericker,  Abby  May  (Alcott),  391,,399. 


522 


INDEX. 


Norman's  Woe,  scene  of  the  "  Wreck  of 
the  Hesperus,"  328,  329. 

Norris,  John,  a  founder  of  Andover  Theo- 
logical Seminary,  8,  25. 

North  American  Review,  72;  William 
Tudor,  founder  of,  221 ;  Richard  H. 
Dana  1st  and  Edward  T.  Channing 
editors  of,  249  ;  Jared  Sparks  editor  of, 
307  ;  John  G.  Palfrey  editor  of,  313 ;  C. 
E.  Norton  and  J.  R.  Lowell  editors  of, 
353 ;  462,  468. 

North  Andover,  Mass.,  4,  21,  22. 

North  Andover,  First  Parish,  25,  29. 

North  Parish,  Andover,  Mass.,  6. 

North  Shore,  Massachusetts  Bay,  173,  215. 

Northampton,  Mass.,  415,  423,  424,  425,  428, 
429 ;  literary  landmarks  of,  432-445. 

Norton,  Andrews,  the  biblical  scholar, 
310,  312. 

Norton,  Prof.  Charles  Eliot,  268,  270; 
"  Shady  Hill,"  home  of,  310 ;  Harvard 
professorship  of,  311 ;  literary  work  of, 
in  the  editorship  of  various  volumes, 
311 ;  translations  of  Dante,  311,  335  ; 
"  Historical  Studies  in  Church  Building 
in  the  Middle  Ages,"  311 ;  353,  355, 356. 

Norton,  Rev.  John,  174,  177,  178,311. 

Norton  family,  311. 

Norton  house,  Ipswich,  Mass.,  177. 

"  Norton's  Woods,"  Cambridge,  Mass., 
310. 

Observatory  Hill,  Cambridge,  326. 

"  Old  Bab,"  the  pirate-ghost,  Isles  of 
Shoals,  117. 

Old  Bay  Road  of  the  Puritans,  181. 

Old  "  Church  of  Federal  Street,"  The, 
Newburyport,  Mass.,  73,  75,  76,  77. 

"Old  Corner  Bookstore,"  Boston,  97; 
Fields's  "  curtained  corner  in,"  99  ;  267. 

"  Old  gambrel-roofed  house,"  the,  birth- 
place of  Holmes,  314,  316,  319,  320. 

««  Old  Ironsides  "  (U.  S.  frigate  "  Consti- 
tution "),  141 ;  Holmes's  poem  on,  283. 

"  Old  Manse,"  the,  Concord,  Mass.,  180. 
209,  266,  345,  380,  385,  405,  407-414. 

Old  Newbury,  see  Newbury,  Mass. 

Old  North  Church,  Portsmouth,  N.H.,  97. 

Old  South  Church,  Ipswich,  Mass.,  176. 

Old  Town  church,  Newburyport,  Mass., 
86. 

"  Orchard  House,"  the  Alcotts',  Concord, 


Mass.,  387,  388,  390,   391,   397,  399,    400, 

404. 

Ossipee  River,  134. 

Ossoli,  Giovanni  Angelo,  Marquis,  303, 304. 
Ossoli  (Margaret   Fuller),  Countess,   see 

Fuller. 

Otis,  James,  221. 
Our  Young  folks,  132,  183, 191,  358. 

"P.  Philander  Doesticks,"  see 
Thomson,  Mortimer. 

Packard,  Prof.  Alpheus  Spring,  158,  163, 
165. 

Paine,  Prof.  John  Knowles,  125, 196. 

Paine,  Robert  Treat,  Jr.,  law  student  in 
Newburyport,  71;  his  song  "Adams 
and  Liberty,"  71. 

Palfrey,  John  Gorham,  home  of,  311 ; 
public  and  literary  life  of,  311-314  ;  his 
"  History  of  New  England,"  313 ;  Low- 
ell's lines  to,  350. 

Palfrey  Place,  The,  Cambridge,  Mass.,  311. 

Park,  Prof.  Edwards  A.,  9, 10. 

Park  River,  Hartford,  Conn.,  473,  478. 

Park  Street,  Boston,  223,  224,  228. 

Park-Street  Church,  Boston,  "America" 
first  sung  in,  9 ;  149. 

Parker,  Rev.  Theodore,  122,  301,  302,  318. 

Parker  River,  86. 

Parkman,  Rev.  Ebenezer,  of  Weslbor- 
ough,  Mass.,  great-grandfather  of 
Francis  Parkman,  243,  244. 

Parkman,  Elias,  of  Dorchester,  Mass., 
first  ancestor  of  the  Parkmans  in 
America,  243. 

Parkman,  Rev.  Francis,  of  Boston,  father 
of  Francis  Parkman,  243. 

Parkman,  Francis,  109  ;  "  Montcalm  and 
Wolfe  "  by,  109,  240,  241,  242  ;  ••  A  Half- 
Century  of  Conflict,"  109,  240,  241,  242  ; 
Boston  homes  of ,  239-240,246  ;  sketch  of, 
and  methqds  of  work,  239-246;  "The 
Pioneers  of  France  in  the  New 
World,"  "The  Jesuits,"  "The  Dis- 
covery of  the  Great  West,"  "The  Old 
Regime,"  and  "  Count  Frontenac,"  240  ; 
birthplace  of,  242 ;  boyhood  home  of, 
243  ;  "  The  Oregon  Trail,"  245,  246  ; 
"History  of  the  Conspiracy  of  Pontiac," 
246;  "Vassal  Morton,"  only  novel  by, 
246  ;  professorship  of,  at  Harvard,  246  ; 
honors  conferred  upon,  in  Canada,  246. 


INDEX. 


523 


Parkman,  Samuel,  grandfather  of  Fran- 
cis Parkman,  243,  244. 

Parkman,  William,  244. 

Parkman  family,  242-244. 

Parsonage,  The,  Newburyport,  Mras., 
where  Whitefield  died,  77,  78. 

Parsons,  Adaline  Treadwell,  see  Lunt. 

Parsons,  Rev.  Jonathan,  of  "The  Par- 
sonage "  where  Whitefield  died,  76. 

Parsons,  Judge  Theophilus,  71, 157. 

Parsons,  Theophilus,  2d,  157,  312. 

Parsons,  Dr.  Thomas  William,  268 ;  trans- 
lations of  Dante  by,  269,  270,335 ;  sketch 
of,  269-271 ;  the  "Poet  "  in  " Tales  of  a 
Wayside  Inn,"  269,  368;  "The  Old 
House  in  Sudbury  Twenty  Years  After- 
wards," 269 ;  volumes  of  poems  by : 
"The  Ghetto  di  Roma,"  "  The  Mag- 
nolia," "The  Old  House  at  Sudbury," 
and  "  The  Shadows  of  the  Obelisk,"  270; 
365. 

Parton,  Ethel,  73. 

Parton,  James,  home  of,  73, 152,  153. 

Parton,  Sara  Payson  (Willis)  ("Fanny 
Fern"),  153;  "Ruth  Hall,"  "Fern 
Leaves,"  "  Fresh  Leaves,"  and  "  Rose 
Clark,"  153. 

"  Paul  Creyton,"  see  Trowbridge,  JohnT. 

Paulding,  James  Kirke,  99. 

Peabody,  Elizabeth  Palmer,  205,  208,  302 ; 
"  Record  of  a  School "  (Alcott's  "  Tem- 
ple School ")  by,  394. 

Peabody  family,  205,  208,  266. 

Peabody  house,  Salem,  Mass.,  206,  208 ; 
Hawthorne's  model  for  "Dr.  Grim- 
shawe's  "  house,  209. 

Peabody  mansion,  Salem,  Mass.,  215. 

Peabody,  Dr.  Nathaniel,  208,  210. 

Pearson,  Prof.  Eliphalet,  7,  8,  9,  316. 

Peasley,  Joseph,  early  Quaker  of  Haver- 
hill,  44. 

Peasley,  Mary,  great-grandmother  of 
Whittier,  44. 

Pennsylvania  Freeman,  The,  Whjttier 
editor  of,  59  ;  Lowell  contributor  to,  348. 

Pentucket,  Indian  name  of  Haverhill, 
Mass.,  35. 

Pepperell  house,  Kittery,  Me.,  109. 

Pepperell,  Sir  William,  67. 

Percival,  James  Gates,  a  student  at  Yale 
College,  489,  496;  his  tragedy  of 
"Zamor"  a  Commencement  part,  489; 


sketch  of,  495-497  ;  "  Prometheus,"  496 ; 

the  "Clio"  series,  496,  497;  "A  Dream 

of  a  Day,"  497  ;  ballads  by,  497. 
Perkins,  Mary  Beecher,  19. 
"  Peter  Parley,"  see  Goodrich,  Samuel  G. 
Peters,  Rev.  Hugh,  175 ;  "  Peter's  Pulpit," 

184. 
Phelps,   Prof.    Austin,    10 ;    "  The    Still 

Hour  "  by,  12,  14. 
Phelps,  Elizabeth  (Stuart)  ("H.  Trusta"), 

10 ;  "  Sunnyside,"  "  The  Angel  Over  the 

Right  Shoulder,"  and  "  Peep  at  Number 

Five  "by,  12. 

Phelps,  Elizabeth  Stuart,  see  Ward. 
Phelps,  Mary  (Johnson),  12. 
Phelps,  Mary  (Stuart),  12. 
Phi  Beta  Kappa  addresses,  230,  249,  265, 

302,  489. 
Phillips  (Andover)  Academy,  4,  5,  6,  7,  17, 

34, 142,  147,  230. 

Phillips  (Exeter)  Academy,  5, 193,  423. 
Phillips,  Ann,  wife  of  Wendell  Phillips, 

230,  231. 
Phillips,    Elizabeth   (Barnard),   wife    of 

Samuel  Phillips,  2d,  6. 
Phillips,  George,  first  minister  of  Water- 
town,    Mass.,    first    ancestor     of    the 

Phillipses  in  America,  6. 
Phillips,  John,  son  of  Rev.    Samuel,   a 

founder  of  the  Phillips  Academies,  5.  6. 
Phillips,  Col.  John,  son  of  Samuel,  3d,  a 

founder  of  Andover  Seminary,  7. 
Phillips,  John,  father  of  Wendell  Phillips, 

230. 
Phillips,  Lydia  (Gorham),  wife   of   Col. 

John  Phillips,  7. 
Phillips,  Madam  Phebe  (Foxcroft),  wife 

of  Samuel  Phillips,  3d,  7,  34. 
Phillips,  Rev.   Samuel,   founder   of   the 

Phillips  family  of  Andover,  Mass.,  6. 
Phillips,  Samuel,  2d,  son  of  Rev.  Samuel, 

a     founder     of     Phillips      (Andover) 

Academy,  5,  6,  7. 
Phillips,  Samuel,  3d,  son  of  Samuel,  2d, 

proposer  of  Phillips  (Andover)  Academy, 

5,  7,  34. 
Phillips,  Wendell,  32  ;  birthplace  of,  228, 

229,  230 ;  grave  of,  230,  231 ;  character- 
ization of,  230-231 ;  233,  318, 
Phillips,  Judge  Willard.  249. 
Phillips,  William,  son  of  Rev.  Samuel. 6. 
Phillips,  William,  2d,  son  of  William,  6. 


524 


INDEX. 


Phillips  family,  5,  6,  230. 

Phillips  manse,  North  Andover,  Mass.,  22, 

34. 

Phips,  Sir  William,  88. 
Pickard,  Samuel  Thomas,  biographer  of 

Whittier,  36,  42,  43,  56,  88. 
Pierce,  Anna  (Longfellow),  136. 
Pierce,  Benjamin,  class  of  1829,  Harvard, 

284. 

Pierce,  Franklin,  105, 124. 
Pierpont,  John,  73;   a  student  at  Yale 

College,  489;  "Airs  of  Palestine"  by, 

489. 

Pierrepont,  Sarah,  see  Edwards. 
Pike,  Albert,  148. 
Pilgrims  at  Plymouth,  117. 
Pinckney  Street,  Boston,  264,  265,  266,  267, 

268,  271,  274,  275,  276. 
Pinkerton  Academy,  Derry,  N.H.,  68. 
Pioneer,  The,  Lowell's  periodical  of  1842, 

347. 

Piscataqua  River,  90, 109, 124. 
Pittsfield,  Mass.,  445 ;  literary  landmarks 

of,  446-453;. 458. 
Plainfield,  Mass.,  468,  481. 
Pleasant  Street,  Arlington,  Mass.,  357. 
Plunkett,  Mrs.  H.  M.,  453. 
"Plunkett  Mansion,"    Pittsfield,  Mass., 

scene  of  Longfellow's  "  Old  Clock    on 

the  Stairs,"  449. 
Plymouth,  Mass.,  380. 
Po  Hill,  Amesbury,  Mass.,  57. 
_Poe,  Edgar  Allan,  152,  195 ;  "  Works  of, 

with  Memoir  and  Notes,"  by  George  E. 

Woodberry,  197  ;  283,  347. 
Ponkapog,  Milton,  Mass.,  276,  370. 
Porter,  Dr.  Timothy  Olcott,  151. 
Portland,  Me.,  47,  88,  127;  literary  land- 
marks of,  128-154 ;  161. 
Portland  (Me.)  Academy,  137, 167. 
Portland  Library,  136. 
Portland  Theatre,  142. 
Portsmouth,  N.H.,  literary  landmarks  of, 

89-109  ;  120,  124,  127,  128,  215,  222,  254. 
Portsmouth  Athenaeum,  97. 
Portsmouth  (N.H.)  Chronicle,  105. 
"  Portsmouth   Flying  Stage-Coach,"    93, 

100. 

Portsmouth  Harbor,  123. 
Portsmouth  Light,  109. 
Potter,  Judge  Barrett,  161. 
Potter,  Mary,  see  Longfellow. 


Powow  River,  Amesbury,  Mass.,  43,  64. 

Pratt,  Anna  Bronson  (Alcott),  375,  391, 
392,  398,  399  ;  wedding  of,  399 ;  grave  of 
402. 

Pratt,  John,  392,  399,  402. 

Preble,  Commodore  Edward,  140,  141,  154, 
158. 

Prentice,  George  Denison,  53  ;  in  Hart- 
ford, Conn.,  472,  485-486. 

Prescott,  Catherine  Greene  (Hickling), 
mother  of  William  H.  Prescott,  215. 

Prescott,  Harriet  Elizabeth,  see  Spoft'ord. 

Prescott,  Susan  (Amory),  wife  of  William 
H.  Prescott,  239. 

Prescott,  Col.  William,  commander  at 
Bunker  Hill,  215  ;  the  American  bearer 
of  one  of  "  the  crossed  swords,"  234,  235. 

Prescott,  Judge  William,  father  of  Wil- 
liam H.  Prescott,  215,  239. 

Prescott,  William  Hickling,  birthplace 
of,  215 ;  217,  221,  227  ;  Boston  homes  of, 
233-236,  239  ;  sketch  of,  and  methods  of 
work,  233,  235-239;  the  "crossed 
swords  "  alluded  to  by  Thackeray,  234, 
235,  239;  his  "Conquest  of  Peru," 
"  Philip  the  Second,"  and  "  Conquest  of 
Mexico,"  325  ;  the  "  History  of  the  Reign 
of  Ferdinand  and  Isabella,"  and  its  re- 
markable reception,  235-236;  Ticknor's 
Life  of,  228,  237. 

Prescott  house,  Boston,  description  of, 
233,  234,  236  ;  239. 

Prince,  Rev.  Joseph,  77. 

Princeton  College,  438,  439. 

Professor's  Row,  see  Kirkland  Street, 
Cambridge. 

Prospect  Street,  Cambridge,  Mass.,  295, 
299. 

Providence,  R.I.,  9,  Margaret  Fuller  a 
teacher  in,  301. 

Public  Library,  Concord,  Mass.,  378,  403. 

Public  Library,  Portsmouth,  N.H.,  102. 

Putnam,  Rev.  Benjamin,  grandfather  of 
Edward  Bellamy,  429. 

Putnam,  Simeon,  School  of,  in  Old  Brad- 
street  homestead,  25,  26. 

Putnam's  Magazine,  95,  344,  481. 

Quakers,  41,  43,  44,  45,  47,  49,  55,  61. 
Quincy,  Josiah,  the   elder,   5,   219,  220; 

Boston  house  of,  228. 
Quincy,  Mass.,  71,  420. 


INDEX. 


525 


Quincy  Square,  Cambridge,  Mass.,  295, 304. 
Quincy  Street,  Cambridge,  Mass.,  304. 

Badcliffe  College,  304. 

Red  Horse  Tavern,  see  Wayside  Inn. 

Reed,  Nathan,  215. 

Reserve,  George,  105. 

Reserve,  Sally,  105. 

Revolution,  The  American,  104 ;  poetry 

of,  106  ;  117,  119,  134, 144,  207,  219,  234, 243, 

250,  291,  306,  312,314,322,326,  327,  341,364, 

369,  418,  439,  473,  488,  491,  492. 
Revolutionary  period,  The,  117,  131,  250. 
Rhodes,  James  Ford,  Boston   home   of, 

289  ;  his  "  History  of  the  United  States 

from  the  Compromise  of  1850,"  289. 
Ripley,  Dr.  Ezra,  345;  in  the  "  Old  Manse," 

Concord,  Mass.,  407, 408  ;  412. 
Ripley,  George,    founder   of   the   Brook 

Farm  community,  294,  302. 
Ripley,  Rev.  Samuel,  of  Waltham,  Mass., 

409. 
Jiiverside    Magazine  for   Young  People, 

132,338. 
Robbins,  Rev.  Chandler,  26 ;  class  of  1829, 

Harvard,  284. 
Rogers,  Rev.  John,  of  Ipswich,  president 

of  Harvard  College,  1682-1684,  29,  175, 

178. 

Rogers  the  Ranger,  244. 
Rolfe,  Henry,  43. 
Rolfe,  John,  43. 
Round  Hill  School,  Northampton,  Mass., 

425  ;  sketch  of,  441  ;  457. 
Rowlandson,  Joseph,  of  Ipswich,  Mass., 

175. 

Roxbury  district,  Boston,  27. 
Rural  Cemetery,  Worcester,  Mass.,  Ban- 
croft's grave  in,  424. 

Saco,  Me.,  132. 

Saco  River,  132,  134. 

Salem  Athenaeum,  Salem,  Mass.,  15,  216. 

Salem-Street  Church,  Boston,  158. 

Salem,  Mass.,  7,  8,  24,  32,  166,  199,  200-217, 

222,  271,  317,  490. 

Salisbury  Beach,  Salisbury,  Mass.,  70. 
Salisbury,  Mass.,  43,  72. 
Saltonstall,  Muriel  (Gurden),  175. 
Saltonstall,  Richard,  175,  178. 
Saltonstall,  Sir  Richard,  175. 
Sanborn,   Franklin   Benjamin,  home  of, 


371,  376  ;  372, 373,374,  375 ;  his  biographies 
of  Emerson,  Thoreau,  Alcott,  and  John 
Brown  of  Osawatomie,  376 ;  sketch  of, 
376-378 ;  389,  394, 395,  397. 

Sanborn,  Katharine  Abbott  ("  Kate  San- 
born"),  420;  the  "abandoned  farm," 
experiment  of,  420-423 ;  sketch  of,  and 
her  work,  423. 

Saturday  Press,  95. 

School  Street,  Boston,  290. 

"  Scourge,"  U.  S.  Schooner,  141. 

Scribner's  Magazine,  (the  first),  69 ;  J.  G. 
Holland,  editor  of,  428  ;  445. 

Scudder,  Horace  Elisha,  home  of,  337; 
sketch  of,  337-338;  his  life  of  Lowell, 
337,  338  ;  "  Dream  Children,"  and  the 
"Bodley  Books,"  337,338;  editorship 
of  the  Atlantic  Monthly,  337,  338 ;  "  His- 
tory of  the  United  States,"  "  Men  and 
Letters,"  "The  Dwellers  in  Five  Sis- 
ters'Court,"  "  Stories  and  Romances," 
biographies  of  David  Coit  Scudder  and 
Noah  Webster,  "  Life  and  Letters  of 
Bayard  Taylor,"  and  "  Recollections  of 
Samuel  Breck,"  338 ;  summer  literary 
workshop  of,  at  Lanesborough,  Mass., 
448. 

Seaflght,  the,  between  the  "Enterprise" 
and  "  Boxer,"  140-141. 

Sebago  Lake,  166. 

Sedgewick,  Catharine  Maria,  452  ;  home 
of,  in  Lenox,  Mass.,  456 ;  her  tales  of  New 
England  life  :  "  The  Linwoods,"  "  The 
Poor  Rich  Man  and  the  Rich  Poor  Man," 
"  Live  and  Let  Live,"  "  The  Morals  of 
Manners,"  "  The  Boy  of  Mt.  Rhigi," 
and  "  Married  and  Single,"  457  ;  458  ; 
home  of,  in  Stockbridge,  461 ;  sketch  of, 
461^63  ;  "A  New  England  Tale,"  462 ; 
"  Redwood,"  "  Hope  Leslie,"  and  "  Clar- 
ence," 463. 

Sedgwick,  Charles,  456,  462. 

Sedgwick,  Elizabeth  Buckminster,  456 ; 
her  Lenox  school,  and  notable  pupils 
of,  457;  "The  Beatitudes,"  and  other 
children's  books  by,  457. 

Sedgwick  family,  452,  456 ;  home  of,  in 
Lenox,  Mass.,  456,  457 ;  in  Stockbridge, 
Mass.,  456,  457,  460  ;  Sedgwick  mansion, 
Stockbridge,  460,  461. 

Sedgwick,  Henry  Dwight,  462,  4691. 

Sedgwick,  Judge  Theodore,  462. 


526 


INDEX. 


Sedgwick,  Theodore,  Jr.,  462. 

Senate,  Massachusetts  State,  Peter  Bry- 
ant in,  249. 

Sergeant,  Rev.  John,  460 ;  tablet  to,  in  old 
Stockbridge  church,  463. 

Sewall,  Anne,  see  Longfellow. 

Sewall,  Jonathan  Mitchell,  his  lyrics  of 
the  Revolution,  106;  epilogue  to  the 
"  Tragedy  of  Cato,"  106. 

Sewall,  Judge  Samuel,  72 ;  Diary  of,  176. 

Sewall  family,  389. 

Sewall  place,  Newburyport,  Mass.,  86. 

•'Shady  Hill,"  home  of  Prof.  Charles 
Eliot  Norton,  310. 

Shaw,  Henry  Wheeler  ("  Josh  Billings  "), 
448. 

Shaw,  Chief  Justice  Lemuel,  of  Massa- 
chusetts, 456. 

Shaw,  Quincy  Adams,  245. 

Shaw,  William  Smith,  of  the  Boston  An- 
thology Club  of  1804,  221,  419. 

Shays'  Rebellion,  43. 

Sheffield,  Mass.,  470. 

Shepard  Congregational  Church,  Cam- 
bridge, 316. 

Shepley,  Rev.  Dr.  David,  163. 

Shillaber,  Benjamin  Penhallow  ("Mrs. 
Partington"),  89;  sketch  of,  99-102; 
"Sayings  of  Mrs.  Partington,"  and 
"Experiences  During  Many  Years," 
100  ;  "  Life  and  Sayings  of  Mrs.  Par- 
tington," 100,  102  ;  "  Ike  and  His 
Friends,"  102  ;  The  Carpet  Bag,  102,  170. 

Sigourney,  Lydia  Huntley,  54,  472  ;  sketch 
of,  484 ;  her  "  Moral  Pieces  in  Prose  and 
Verse,"  and  "Letters  in  Life,"  484 ; 
Whittier's  tribute  to,  484. 

Silliman,  Benjamin,  student  at  Yale  Col- 
lege, 490 ;  grave  of,  491. 

Silliman,  Benjamin,  Jr.,  grave  of,  491. 

Silsbee,  Edward  A.,  200. 

Sleepy  Hollow  Cemetery,  Concord,  Mass., 
graves  of  the  Alcotts  in,  402;  Haw- 
thorne's grave  in,  402,  403,  405. 

Smith,  Abigail,  see  Adams. 

Smith  College,  423;  founded  by  Sophia 
Smith,  440. 

Smith,  Elizabeth  Oakes,  143. 

Smith,  Captain  John,  111,  112,114. 

Smith,  Joseph  Edward  Adams  ("  Godfrey 
Greylock  "),  454. 

Smith,  Dr.    Samuel  Francis,  his   hymn* 


"America,"  when  written  and  first 
sung,  8  ;  "  The  Morning  Light  is  Break- 
ing," 9  ;  class  of  1829,  Harvard,  285. 

Smith,  Seba  ("  Major  Jack  Downing  "), 
142,  143. 

Smith,  Sophia,  founder  of  Smith  College, 
440. 

Smith's  Islands,  see  Isles  of  Shoals. 

Smutty  Nose  Island,  see  Haley's  Island. 

Snell,  Sally,  see  Bryant. 

Snell,  "  Squire,"  466. 

Society  of  Friends,  see  Quakers. 

Society  for  Propagating  the  Gospel  Among 
Indians,  The,  120. 

Sons  of  Liberty,  104. 

South  Berwick,  Me,  128,  129. 

South  Berwick  Academy,  129. 

South  Church,  Ipswich,  Mass.,  tablet  in 
front  of,  178. 

South  Congregational  Church,  Boston, 
Edward  Everett  Hale  minister  of,  291. 

South  Framingham,  Mass.,  416,  420. 

South  Mountain,  Pittsneld,  Mass.,  and 
scenes  of  "  Elsie  Venner,"  450. 

South  Parish,  Andover,  Mass.,  6. 

South  Sudbury,  Mass.,  362,  369. 

Southern  Literary  Messenger,  500. 

Southey,  Robert,  George  Ticknor's  friend- 
ship with,  227;  Washington  Allston's 
friendship  with,  297. 

Souvenirs,  204. 

Sparks,  Jared,  home  of,  306;  sketch  of, 
306-307  ;  the  Sparks  manuscripts  in 
Harvard  College  Library,  306 ;  "  Diplo- 
matic Correspondence  of  the  American 
Revolution,"  306,  307 ;  "  Writings  of 
General  Washington,"  "  Library  of 
American  Biography,"  and  Franklin's 
Works,  307;  editorship  of  the  North 
American  Review,  307;  312,  420. 

Spence,  Harriet,  see  Lowell. 

Spofford,  Harriet  Prescott,  home  of,  65- 
67,  70;  sketch  of,  67-70;  first  story  of, 
"  In  a  Cellar,"  69 ;  "  Sir  Rohan's 
Ghost,"  "The  Amber  Gods,"  "Aza- 
rian,"  "  The  Thief  in  the  Night,"  "  New 
England  Legends,"  "  The  Marquis  of 
Carabas,"  "  Hester  Stanley  at  St. 
Mark's,"  "In  Titian's  Garden  and 
Other  Poems,"  and  "Priscilla's  Love 
Story,"  69  ;  72,  131,  132. 

Spofford,  Richard  S.,  69. 


INDEX. 


527 


Spring,  Rev.  Dr.  Samuel,  a  projector  o 

Andover  Theological  Seminary,  7. 
Springfield,  Mass.,  415,  41C>,  424  ;  literary 

landmarks  of,  425-4'.*.) ;  441,  449. 
Springfield,  Mass.,  Cemetery,  J.  G.  Hoi 
land's  grave  in,  426;  Samuel  Bowles'f 
grave  in,  429. 

Springfield  Republican,  The,  378;  Samne 
Bowles's  editorship  of,  427  ;  J.  G.  Hoi 
land's  connection  with,  427. 
Spy  Pond,  Arlington,  357. 
Stamp  Act  of  1765,  105. 
Star  Island,  Isles  of  Shoals,  110,  111,  114 

119. 

State  House,  Boston,  249,  271. 
Staten  Island,  N.Y.,  Theodore  Winthrop's 

home  on,  494. 
Stavers,  Bartholomew,    of   the   "  Ports- 
mouth Flying  Stage-Coach  "  line,  93. 
Stavers,  John,  landlord  of  the  "  Earl  of 

Halifax,"  Portsmouth,  N.  H.,  92. 
Stearns,  Frank  Preston,  125. 
Stedman,  Edmund  Clarence,  197,  269,  270 ; 

a  student  at  Yale  College,  490. 
Stephen,   Leslie,  his     sketch   of   Lowell 

at  "  Elmwood,"  356. 
Stephens,  Mrs.  Anna  S.  (Winterbotham), 
143  ;  her  "  Fashion  and  Famine  "  and 
other  novels,  143. 

Stephenson,  Capt.  Samuel,  133,  134. 
Stockbridge,  Mass.,  Jonathan   Edwards 
at,  437,  438,  446,  449,  456,  457,  460-461 ; 
literary  landmarks  of,  459-463 ;  464. 
Stockbridge  Bowl,  see  Lake  Mahkeenac. 
Stoddard,  Rev.  Solomon,  434,  435. 
Storrow,  Louisa,  see  Higginson. 
Story,  Judge  Joseph,  137  ;    mansion  of, 

Salem,  Mass.,  202. 

Story,  William  Wetmore,  202 ;  his  "  Roba 
di  Roma,"  "  Fiametta,  A  Summer 
Idyl,"  "  Conversations  in  a  Studio," 
and  "  Excursions  in  Art  and  Letters," 
202. 

Story  street,  Cambridge,  Mass.,  321. 
Stowe,  Prof.  Calvin  Ellis,  17  ;  professor  at 

Bowdoin  College,  18,  158,  159,  160 ;  20. 
Stowe,  Charles,  20. 

Stowe,  Harriet  Beecher,  home  of,  in  Ando- 
ver,  Mass.,  17-20  ;  sketch,  17-20,  478-480  ; 
"  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,"  17, 18, 19,  59,  143, 
155 ;  its  origin  and  composition,  158-160  ; 
"  Key  "  to  "  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,"  17  ; 


"Dred,"  17,  19,  20;  "The  Minister's 
Wooing,"  and  "  The  Pearl  of  Orr's 
Island,"  17 ;  "  Agnes  of  Sorrento,"  17, 
20  ;  grave  of,  in  Andover,  20,  21 ;  home 
of,  in  Brunswick,  Me.,  155,  158-159 ;  first 
book  of,  160;  "The  Mayflower,"  160; 
472  ;  Hartford,  Conn.,  homes  of,  478-480; 
"We  and  Our  Neighbors,"  "Oldtown 
Folks  "  and  "  Pink  and  White  Tyranny," 
480 ;  482,  485. 

Stowe,  Henry,  19,  20,  21. 

Stuart,  Elizabeth  ("H.  Trusta"),  see 
Phelps. 

Stuart,  Mary,  see  Phelps. 

Stuart,  Prof.  Moses,  10,  12. 

Sudbury,  Mass.,  364,  369,  370. 

Sudbury  River,  376. 

Summer  Street,  Boston,  290. 

Sumner,  Charles,  Senator,  232,  265,  304 ; 
one  of  the  "Five  of  Clubs,"  325;  329, 
330,  425,  426,  452. 

Sumner,  Horace,  304. 

Swift,  Lindsay,  195,  197, 198,  294. 

Swinnerton,  Dr.  John,  210. 

Symmes,  Rev.  Dr.  William,  25. 

Symmes,  Zachariah,  25. 

Symonds,  Rebekah,  175. 

Symonds,  Dep'y-Gov.  Samuel,  of  the 
Massachusetts  Colony,  175. 

Symonds'  Hill,  Cambridge,  Mass.,  342. 

Symposium,  The,  see  Transcendental 
Club. 

Taconic  Mountain,  The  Berkshires, 

Mass.,  458. 

'  Tarryawhile,"  Northampton  home  of 
George  W.  Cable,  443,  444. 

Taunton,  Mass.,  71. 

Taylor,  Bayard,  70,  146,  338. 
Temple  School,"  Boston,   A.    Bronson 
Alcott's,     301  ;      Elizabeth    Peabodj  's 
Record    of,    394;    model    for    "Alcott 
House,"  Ham  Common,  England,  395. 

Thackeray,  William  Makepeace,  Paris 
letters  of,  to  Willis's  Corsair,  151-152 ; 
204  ;  reference  of,  to  Prescott's  "  crossed 
swords,"  234,  235 ;  manuscripts  of,  in 
James  T.  Fields's  library,  278. 

Thaxter,  Celia  (Laighton),  89,  94,  102,  110, 
112  ;  "  The  Spaniards'  Graves,"  by,  113  ; 
115,  119 ;  home  of,  in  the  White  Island 
light-house,  120-121  ;  "  The  Wreck  of  the 


528 


INDEX. 


Pocahontas,"  121;  sketch  of,  122-126; 
cottage  and  garden  of,  on  Appledore, 
123-124  ;  "  An  Island  Garden,"  and  "  My 
Garden,"  124;  "Among  the  Isles  of 
Shoals,"  and  "Land-Locked,"  125; 
grave  of,  126  ;  181,  316. 

Thaxter,  Levi  Lincoln,  122,  123,  124,  125, 
318. 

Thayer,  Abijah  W.,  50. 

Thayer,  Prof.  James  Bradley,  316. 

Theological  School  of  the  New  Jerusalem 
Church,  Cambridge,  Mass.,  306. 

Theological  Seminary,  Andover,  See  An- 
dover  Theological  Seminary. 

Thompson,  George,  55. 

Thomson,  Mortimer  ("P.  Philander 
Doesticks "),  his  "  E.  Pluri  Buster,"  a 
parody  on  "  Hiawatha,"  333. 

Thoreau,  Cynthia  (Dunbar),  mother  of 
Henry  D.  Thoreau,  anecdote  of,  372. 

Thoreau,  Henry  David,  191, 192  ;  Concord, 
Mass.,  homes  of,  371 ;  birthplace  of,  371 ; 
"  hermitage  "  of,  by  Walden  Pond,  371, 
374-375,  397;  sketch  of,  371-375;  "Wal- 
den," 373,  374,  376 ;  "  Walk  to  Wachu- 
sett,"  374  ;  "  Week  on  the  Concord  and 
Merrimac  Rivers,"  374,  376 ;  "  Excur- 
sions," "  The  Maine  Woods,"  "  Cape 
Cod,"  and  "  A  Yankee  in  Canada,"  375 ; 
376,  385,  386,  404,  413-414. 

Thoreau,  John,  grandfather  of  Henry 
D.  Thoreau,  371,  372. 

Thoreau,  John,  father  of  Henry  D. 
Thoreau,  372. 

Thoreau,  Sophia,  sister  of  Henry  D. 
Thoreau,  372. 

Thoreau  family,  371 ;  home  of,  on  the 
village  square,  Concord,  Mass.,  371,  372. 

"Thoreau  house,"  Concord,  Mass.,  home 
of  Thoreau,  371 ;  later,  home  of  the  Al- 
cotts,  375  ;  376,  400. 

Thoreau  Street,  Concord,  Mass.,  371. 

Ticknor,  Anna  (Eliot),  wife  of  George 
Ticknor,  227. 

Ticknor,  Elisha,  father  of  George  Ticknor, 
224 ;  his  "  English  Exercises,"  225  ;  226. 

Ticknor,  George,  162,  221,  222 ;  house  of, 
223,  224  ;  library  of,  223,  224,  228 ;  sketch 
of,  224-228 ;  his  "  History  of  Spanish 
Literature,"  224,  227 ;  professorship  at 
Harvard  College,  227  ;  Life  of  Prescott, 
228,237,  238;  236,261,323, 


Ticknor  and  Fields,  60,  98,  267. 

Ticknor,  Reed,  and  Fields,  98. 

Todd,  Capt.  Francis,  82. 
Token,  The,  148. 

"  Tory  How,"  Cambridge,  327. 

"  Town  and  Country  Club,"  A.  Bronson 
Alcott's,  398. 

Transcendental  Club,  Boston,  253,  302; 
evolved  from  "  The  Symposium,"  384  ; 
Emerson's  association  with,  302,  384; 
395. 

Tread  well,  Prof.  Daniel,  365 ;  the  "  Theo- 
logian," in  "  Tales  of  a  Wayside  Inn," 
368. 

Tremont  Place,  Boston,  290. 

Tremont  Street,  Roston,  290. 

Trinity  Church,  Boston,  221. 

Trowbridge,  John  Townsend,  writings  of, 
as  "  Paul  Creyton,"  102,  359 ;  editor  of 
Our  Young  Folks,  183,  358 ;  home  of,  357, 
358;  story  of  "Neighbor  Jackwood," 
357,  359  ;  "  Jack  Hazard,"  "  A  Chance 
for  Himself,"  "Doing  His  Best," 
"  Lawrence's  Adventures,"  "  The  Young 
Surveyor,"  and  "  The  Tide  Mill  Stories," 
358;  "The  Vagabonds,"  358,  359; 
"Martin  Merrivale :  his  +  mark,"  and 
"Father  Brighthopes,"  359;  "Coupon 
Bonds,"  "Cudjo's  Cave,"  and  "The 
Winnower,"  360;  Sketch  of,  360-361; 
first  poem  of  in  print,  360. 

Trumbull,  John,  of  the  "  Hartford  Wits," 
472 ;  "  M'Fingal "  by,  487  ;  491. 

Trumbull,  Col.  John,  490,  491. 

Trumbull,  Governor  Jonathan,  491. 

Trumbull,  Governor  Jonathan  (the  2d), 
491. 

"  Trusta,  H."  (Elizabeth  Stuart),  12. 

Tucker,  Ellen,  see  Emerson. 

Tudor,  William,  founder  of  the  North 
American  Review,  221,  249. 

Underwood,  Francis  Henry,  48. 

Union  College,  432,  439. 

Union  Hospital,  Georgetown,  Louisa  M. 

Alcott  a  nurse  in,  391. 
Unitarian    Church,  Newburyport,  Mass., 

see  First  Church,  Newburyport,  Mass. 
United  States  Arsenal,  Springfield,  Mass., 

425. 

"  United  States,"  the  frigate,  455. 
United  States  Literary  Gazette,  157. 


529 


University  of  Nebraska,  194. 
University  of  Pennsylvania,  Charles  Dud- 
ley Warner  at,  482. 

Van  Schaack,  Henry,  of  Kimlerhook, 

451. 
Vassal  house,  Cambridge,  see  Longfellow 

(Craigie)  house. 

Vassal,  Col.  John,  of  Cambridge,  327. 
Verplanck,  Gulian  Crommelin,  469. 
Very,  John,  birthplace  of,  216  ;  sketch  of, 

217  ;  Essays  and  Poems  by,  217. 
Vipart,  Count,  47. 
"  Virginia  road,"  Concord,  Mass.,  371. 

Wads-worth,  Lieut.  Alexander  Scan- 

nel,  141. 
Wadsworth,  Rev.  Benjamin,  president  of 

Harvard  College,  1725-1734,  369,  370. 
Wadsworth,    Christopher    of    Duxbury, 

Mass.,  first  ancestor  of  the  Wadsworths 

in  America,  369. 
Wadsworth,    Lieut.    Henry,   140;   grave 

of,  141. 

Wadsworth,  Lucia,  137. 
Wadsworth,  Gen.  Peleg,  grandfather  of 

Longfellow,  builder  of  the  "  Longfellow 

mansion,"  Portland,  Me.,  134,  136,  137, 

138,  141. 
Wadsworth,  Capt.    Samuel,    of    Milton, 

Mass.,  in  King  Philip's   War,  364 ;   in 

the  "  Sudbury  Fight,"  369 ;  monument 

to,  near  the  battle-ground,  370. 
Wadsworth,  Zilpah,  see  Longfellow. 
Wadsworth,  Athenaeum,  Hartford,  Conn., 

484. 

Wadsworth  family,  369. 
"  Wadsworth  Grant,"  134. 
"  Wadsworth  Hill,"  Milton,  Mass.,  369, 

370. 
««  Wadsworth    House  "    (old   President's 

house),  Harvard  University,  369,  409. 
Walden  Pond,  Concord,  Mass.,  371,  374, 

379,  381,  385,  397. 

Walden  Woods,  Concord,  Mass.,  379,  386. 
Waldo,  Cornelius,  180. 
Wales,  Henry  Ware,  the  "Student"  in 

the  "  Tales  of  a  Wayside  Inn,"  367. 
Walnut  Street,  Boston,  228,  229,  253. 
Walter,  Arthur  Maynard,  221. 
War  of  1812,  317. 
Ward,  Gen.  Artemas,  314. 


Ward,  Elizabeth  Stuart  (Phelps),  Amlover 
home  of,  10,  1C;  sketch  of,  10-16;  first 
publication  of,  "  A  Sacrifice  Consumed," 
13 ;  story  of  her  "  Gates  Ajar,"  13-15, 
16  ; "  The  Gates  Between,"  and  "  Hedged 
In,"  15  ;  17,  329. 

Ward,  Herbert  Dickinson,  16. 

Ward,  Julius  Hammond,  496. 

Ward,  Rev.  Nathaniel,  of  Ipswich,  Mass., 
the  "  Simple  Cobler  of  Aggawam  "  by, 
29,  173,  178 ;  the  ••  Body  of  Liberties," 
173 ;  site  of  house  of,  178. 

Ware,  Rev.  Henry,  8,  419. 

Warner,  Charles  Dudley,  472,  476 ;  Hart- 
ford, Conn.,  homes  of,  480-481 ;  "  My 
Summer  in  a  Garden  "  by,  480,  482-483 ; 
"  Saunterings,"  "  Backlog  Studies,"  and 
"Baddeck  and  That  Sort  of  Thing," 
480,  483 ;  "My  Winter  on  the  Nile,"  and 
"In  the  Levant,"  *81 ;  sketch  of,  481- 
483 ;"  A  Roundabout  Journey,"  "  The 
Pilgrimage,"  "  A  Little  Journey  in  the 
World,"  "Studies  in  the  South  and 
West,"  "As  We  Were  Saying,"  and 
"Library  of  the  World's  Best  Litera- 
ture," 483. 

Warner,  Jonathan,  house,  Portsmouth, 
N.H..  104. 

Washington,  George,  nephews  of,  at 
Phillips  (Andover)  Academy,  5  ;  71,  92, 
296;  headquarters  of,  in  the  Vassal 
(Craigie-Longfellow)  house,  307,  336; 
312,  323,  327,  344,  364,  488,  491. 

Washington  Street,  Boston,  290. 

Waterford,  Me.,  170, 171. 

Waters,  Lieut.  Kerwin,  of  U.  S.  brig 
"  Enterprise,"  141. 

Watertown,  first  minister  of,  6 ;  347. 

"  Wayside,  The,"  Hawthorne's  last  Con- 
cord home,  398;  sketch  of,  402-406; 
work  done  in  the  "Tower  study," 
403-J04;  the  outdoor  study  on  "The 
Ridge,"  404-405. 

"Wayside  Inn,  The,"  South  Sudbury, 
Mass.,  70,  269,  270,  362 ;  as  pictured  in 
Longfellow's  "Tales"  of,  362,  363; 
earlier  days  of,  as  the  "Red  Horse 
Tavern,"  364,  369  ;  "  Landlord  Howe  " 
of,  365,  369 ;  connection  of  the  Howe 
family  with,  365,  369. 

Webber,  Samuel,  president  of  Harvard 
College,  1806-1810,  8. 


530 


INDEX. 


Webster,  Daniel,  45,  46;  in  Portsmouth, 
N.H.,  104-105  ;  225,  236,  346,  423. 

"Webster,  Ezekiel,  schoolmaster,  225,  423. 

Webster,  Grace  (Fletcher),  105. 

Webster,  Noah,  the  lexicographer,  Scud- 
der's  Life  of,  338 ;  in  Hartford,  Conn., 
473 ;  his  spelling-book,  473  ;  490 ;  grave 
of,  491. 

Weiss,  Rev.  John,  122,  125. 

Weld,  Elias,  the  "wise  old  doctor"  of 
"  Snow  Bound,"  49. 

Wendell,  Jacob,  great-grandfather  of 
O.  W.  Holmes,  450. 

Wendell,  Judge  Oliver,  grandfather  of 
O.  W.  Holmes,  site  of  Boston  house  of, 
290  ;  in  "  the  old  gambrel-roofed  house," 
Cambridge,  316 ;  at  Pittsfield,  451 ;  his 
chaise  "The  Deacon's  Masterpiece," 
451. 

Wendell,  Sarah,  see  Holmes. 

Wenham  Lake,  184. 

Wenham,  Mass,  184. 

Wentworth,  the  three  royal  governors  of 
New  Hampshire,  92, 102,  104,  119,  317. 

Wentworth,  Governor  Benning,  92,  102' 
104, 108. 

Wentworth,  Governor  John,  house  of, 
Portsmouth,  N.H.,  104;  119. 

Wentworth,  Judge,  grandson  of  the  first 
royal  Governor  Wentworth,  317. 

Wentworth,  Michael,  108,  109. 

Wentworth  "  Great  House,"  92,  102,  103 ; 
sketch  of,  106-108  ;  109. 

West  Church,  Boston,  253,  341. 

West  Newbury,  Mass.,  44. 

West  River,  498. 

Whale  Back  Lighthouse,  124. 

Wheaton  Female  Seminary,  Lucy  Larcom 
a  teacher  at,  190. 

Wheelock,  Rev.  Eleazar,  founder  of  Dart- 
mouth College,  440. 

Whipple,  Edwin  Percy,  97,  99  ;  sketch  of, 
215,  271-274  ;  Boston  home  of,  271,  273- 
274;  "Essays  and  Reviews,"  "Litera- 
ture and  Life,"  "  Character  and  Char- 
acteristic Men,"  "  Literature  of  the  Age 
of  Elizabeth,"  "  Success  and  its  Condi- 
tions," and  "American  Literature  and 
Other  Papers  "  by,  272 ;  "  Recollections 
of  Eminent  Men,"  273 ;  403. 

White  Island,  Isles  of  Shoals,  110,  112, 
114, 116, 120,  121,  122. 


White  Island  Lighthouse,  112, 120, 121, 122. 

White,  Maria,  see  Lowell. 

Whitefield,  George,  the  evangelist,  in 
Newburyport,  Mass.,  74-76;  tomb  of, 
"  under  the  church  of  Federal  Street," 
73,  74,  76  ;  77,  78,  83,  440. 

Whitney,  William  Dwight,  tomb  of,  492. 

Whittier  Club,  Haverhill,  Mass.,  38. 

Whittier  Elm,  55. 

Whittier  Hill,  65. 

Whittier,  Abigail  (Hussey),  mother  of 
J.  G.  Whittier,  sketch  of,  44-45  ;  56. 

Whittier,  Amy  de  Poyen,  47. 

Whittier,  Elizabeth,  sister  of  J.  G.  Whit- 
tier, 47,  56,  57,  190. 

Whittier,  John,  father  of  J.  G.  Whittier, 
42,  43 ;  sketch  of,  44  ;  48,  50,  52,  53. 

Whittier,  John  Greeuleaf,  first  printed 
poem  by,  "  The  Exile's  Departure,"  35, 
50;  "The Bridal  of  Pennacook,"  "The 
Norseman's  Ride,"  and  "  Pentucket," 
35,59;  "Kenoza  Lake,"  36;  called  the 
"shoemaker  poet,*'  36;  the  Whittier 
homestead,  birthplace  of,  36-55,  57 ; 
sketch  of,  36,  47-55,  59-61,  132  ;  "  The 
Sycamores,"  36,  60  ;  "  The  Fish  I  Didn't 
Catch,"  38 ;  "  The  Barefoot  Boy,"  and 
"Telling  the  Bees,"  39;  "Yankee 
Gypsies,"  40  ;  "  Snow  Bound,"  40  ;  the 
family  group  pictured  in,  42-47,  49,  55, 
61,  63,  71 ;  "  Literary  Recreations,"  40, 
58,  59 ;  "  Justice  and  Expediency,"  41, 
55;  "The  Countess,"  47,  49;  "The 
Deity,"  50 ;  first  meeting  of  the  poet  and 
Garrison,  50-51 ;  editor  of  a  Henry  Clay 
organ  in  Boston,  53  ;  editor  of  the  Haver- 
hill  Gazette,  53 ;  editor  of  the  New  Eng- 
land Literary  Heview,  Hartford,  Conn., 
53,  54,  472,  485-487  ;  "  Legends  of  New 
England,"  53,  486  ;  early  activity  of,  in 
politics,  54  ;  member  of  the  Legislature, 
and  proposed  for  Congress,  55 ;  "In 
School  Days,"  55  ;  the  Amesbury  Whit- 
tier home,  56-61 ;  "  Old  Portraits," 
"Leaves  from  Margaret  Smith's  Jour- 
nal," and  "  In  War  Time,"  58,  60 ;  "  The 
Fainilist's  Hymn,"  "  Cassandra  South- 
wick,"  "  Hampton  Beach,"  "The  New 
Wife  and  the  Old,"  "Randolph  of 
Roanoke,"  "Barclay  of  Ury,"  "The 
Drovers,"  "  The  Huskers,"  "  Calef  in 
Boston  "  "  The  Hill  Top,"  "  Tauler," 


INDEX. 


531 


"  Burns,"  "  Maud  Muller,"  "  A  Lady  of 
Old  Time,"  "The  Last  Walk  in  Au- 
tumn," and  "  The  Pipes  of  Lucknow," 
59 ;  "  The  Gift  of  Titemius,"  "  Skipper 
Iresou's  Ride,"  and  "  Barbara  Friet- 
chie,"  60 ;  ••  Laus  Deo,"  62  ;  "  The  Wreck 
of  Rivermouth,"  70 ;  "  The  Tent  on  the 
Beach,"  scene  of,  70, 71 ;  "  To  My  School- 
master," 72,  86  ;  "  The  Preacher,"  lines 
quoted  from,  73;  81,  82,  125;  "The 
Falls  of  the  Saco,"  132;  138,  176,  178; 
"  Lines"  to  "  Gail  Hamilton,"  182-183  ; 
"  The  Witch  of  Wenham,"  184  ;  190,  278, 
484 ;  "  Miriam,"  487  ;  496. 

Whittier,  Joseph,  great-grandfather  of 
J.  G.  Whittier,  41,  43,  44,  54. 

Whittier,  Joseph,  2d,  grandfather  of  J.  G. 
Whittier,  43,  44. 

Whittier,  Mary,  sister  of  J.  G.  Whittier, 
46,  48,  50,  51. 

Whittier,  Mary  (Peasley),  great-grand- 
mother of  J.  G.  Whittier,  44. 

Whittier,  Matthew  Franklin  ("Ethan 
Spike  of  Hornby"),  brother  of  J.  G. 
Whittier,  47,  64,  102. 

Whittier,  Moses,  uncle  of  J.  G.  Whittier, 
46,48. 

Whittier,  Ruth  (Green),  wife  of  Thomas 
Whittier,  the  emigrant,  43. 

Whittier,  Sarah  (Greenleaf),  grandmother 
of  J.  G.  Whittier,  44. 

Whittier,  Thomas,  the  pioneer  emigrant, 
ancestor  of  J.  G.  Whittier,  42,  43,  44,  45. 

Whittier's  country,  35-55,  70. 

Whittier's  grave,  61,  63,  64. 

Willard,  Emma  Hart,  472 ;  "  Rocked  in 
the  Cradle  of  the  Deep,"  by.  485. 

Willard,  Joseph,  president  of  Harvard, 
1781-1804,  419. 

William  Pitt  tavern,  see  "  Earl  of  Hali- 
fax "  tavern. 

Williams  College,  337,  462,  464,  467. 

Willis,  Cornelia  (Grinnell),  second  wife  of 
X.  P.  Willis,  153. 

Willis,  Hannah  (Parker),  mother  of  X.  P. 
Willis,  144. 

AVillis,  Mary  (Stace),  first  wife  of  N.  P. 
Willis,  150,  151,  153. 

Willis,  Nathaniel,  grandfather  of  X.  P. 
Willis,  144. 

Willis,  Deacon  Nathaniel,  father  of  N.  P. 
Willis,  144. 


Willis,  Nathaniel  Parker,  pupil  at  Phil- 
lips (Andover)  Academy,  5,  147 ;  editor 
of  the  Home  Journal,  95,  152,  153 ;  142 ; 
"Saturday  Afternoon,"  by,  143,  148; 
sketch  of,  144-153 ;  "  Absalom,"  and 
"  The  Sacrifice  of  Abraham,"  147 ;  bis 
American  Monthly  Magazine,  148,  231  ; 
"  Peucillings  by  the  Way,"  the  "  Philip 
Slingsby  Papers,"  in  "  Inklings  of  Ad- 
venture," "  Loiterings  of  Travel,"  and 
"  Lines  on  Leaving  England,"  150 ;  "  A 
PAbri,"  and  "  Letters  from  Under  a 
Bridge,"  151 ;  The  Corsair,  and  Thack- 
eray's letters  to,  151,  152;  "Dashes  at 
Life  With  a  Free  Pencil,"  and  "  Letter 
to  the  Unknown  Purchaser  and  Next 
Occupant  of  "  Glenmary,"  152  ;  "  Invalid 
Letters,"  and  "  Paul  Fane,"  153 ;  a  stu- 
dent at  Yale  College,  489. 

Willis,  Richard  Storrs,  brother  of  N.  P. 
Willis,  153. 

Willis,  Sara  Payson,  sister  of  H.  P.  Willis, 
see  Parton. 

Winthrop,  Elizabeth  (Reade),  second  wife 
of  John  Winthrop  of  Ipswich,  175. 

Winthrop,  John,  of  Ipswich,  first  gov- 
ernor of  Connecticut,  174,  175,  178,  490. 

Winthrop,  Governor  John,  of  Massachu- 
setts, 174,  176,  206. 

Winthrop,  John  Fitz,  second  Gov.  Win- 
throp of  Connecticut,  175. 

Winthrop,  Laura,  see  Johnson. 

Winthrop,  Martha  (Painter),  first  wife  of 
John  Winthrop  of  Ipswich,  175. 

Winthrop,  Theodore,  student  at  Yale 
College,  489  ;  sketch  of,  490,  492,  493-495; 
birthplace  of,  492-493;  grave  of,  492: 
"  Life  and  Poems  "  of,  492,  495  ;  "  Cecil 
Dreeme,"  "Love  and  Skates,"  and 
"March  of  the  Seventh  Regiment  of 
New  York  to  Washington,"  494,  495; 
"John  Brent,"  "Edwin  Brothertoft,': 
"  The  Canoe  and  the  Saddle,"  and  "  Life 
in  the  Open  Air,"  495. 

Witchcraft  delusion,  25,  34,  206,  215. 

Wolcott,  Oliver,  4%. 

Wolcott,  Roger,  the  earliest  Hartford 
poet,  490. 

Woodberry,  George  Edward,  birthplace 
of,  193  ;  sketch  of,  193-197  ;  "  The  Xorth 
Shore  Watch  "  by,  193,  195  ;  "  Makers  of 
Literature,"  and  "  Heart  of  Man,"  193, 


532 


INDEX. 


197 ;  "  Verses  from  the  Harvard  Advo- 
cate," 194 ;  "  Life  of  Edgar  Allan  Poe," 
195 ;  "  My  Country,"  passages  quoted 
from,  195-196 ;  "  Studies  in  Letters  and 
Life,"  Shelley's  Works,  with  memoir, 
and  "Wild  Eden,"  197;  "National 
Studies  in  American  Letters,"  197,  294. 

Woodbridge,  Rev.  Benjamin,  29. 

Woodbridge,  Rev.  John,  27,  29. 

Woodbury,  Levi,  105. 

Woods,  Rev.  Dr.  Leonard,  first  head  of 
Andover  Theological  Seminary,  9. 

Woods,  Rev.  Dr.  Leonard,  2d,  fourth  presi- 
dent of  Bowdoin  College,  9. 

Woodworth,  Samuel,  the  "  Old  Oaken 
Bucket"  by,  148. 


Woolsey,  Theodore  D wight,  tenth  presi- 
dent of  Yale  College,  439. 

Woolson,  Abba  (Goold),  143. 

Wooster  Street,  New  Haven,  Conn.,  492. 

Worcester,  Mass.,  423,  424. 

Worcester,  Joseph  Emerson,  the  lexi- 
cographer, 214,  329 ;  a  student  at  Yale 
College,  490. 

Wreck  of  the  "  Sagunto,"  112. 

Yale  College,  96,  147,  434,  435,  436,  439, 
440,  462,  467,  488,  489,  490,  491,  492,  493, 
495,  496,  501. 

Youth's  Companion,  13,  144, 147. 


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